The Trump administration is disputing a new report that the Iran war has drained the U.S. Army of nearly all its stockpiles of two frontline long-range precision missiles, with President Donald Trump and Pentagon officials insisting the military retains more than enough firepower for its missions.
The report, published Tuesday by Reuters and citing people familiar with internal U.S. military data, said the Army has used «virtually all» of its inventories of Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, and Precision Strike Missiles, or PrSM, during five months of conflict with Iran. According to the report, officials worry the drawdown could complicate Washington's ability to respond to future crises involving adversaries such as China and Russia.
The White House rejected that assessment. «We have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need, despite the fact that an unprecedented amount was given away by Crooked Joe Biden and the Biden Administration to Ukraine and Europe at no cost, in one of many of their extremely dumb moves,» Trump said in a statement. He added that U.S. defense companies are producing more munitions than ever and expanding plants and equipment at record levels.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell also pushed back. «America's military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President's choosing,» he said. Parnell pointed to successful operations across combatant commands and said the military maintains a deep arsenal to protect U.S. people and interests.
If accurate, the Reuters report underscores a long-standing Pentagon concern: the military's most advanced precision weapons can be consumed in months but can take years to replace. The report also said the conflict has significantly reduced inventories of Patriot and THAAD missile interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Exact stockpile figures remain classified for national security reasons.
Independent analysts have reached similar conclusions. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated last week that the U.S. had expended roughly 65 percent of its Patriot interceptor stockpile and that inventories of THAAD interceptors had fallen by at least 38 percent since the start of the conflict, based on open-source analysis and budget data. Reuters reported that its sources said those figures broadly aligned with internal U.S. data.
ATACMS and the newer PrSM are among the Army's premier long-range strike weapons, capable of hitting targets hundreds of miles away without risking pilots. Military planners value them especially for operations against heavily defended adversaries, because they can destroy command posts, air defenses, logistics hubs and other high-value targets from beyond the reach of many enemy air-defense systems.
Patriot and THAAD perform a different mission: rather than striking enemy targets, they defend U.S. forces and allies by intercepting incoming ballistic missiles. Tomahawk cruise missiles allow the Navy to conduct long-range strikes from ships and submarines.
The report comes as Pentagon leaders have increasingly warned about the challenge of sustaining prolonged, high-intensity conflict against major powers while replenishing advanced weapons. That concern has accelerated efforts to pair expensive precision missiles with larger numbers of lower-cost, «attritable» drones and autonomous systems that can be produced rapidly and fielded at scale. Officials argue this approach would let commanders reserve million-dollar precision weapons for the highest-value targets while using cheaper systems for surveillance, electronic warfare and many strike missions.
Military leaders caution, however, that inexpensive drones are not a substitute for long-range precision missiles such as ATACMS and PrSM. Those weapons remain essential for striking hardened command centers, air-defense batteries and other heavily defended targets at distances many lower-cost drones cannot yet reach or survive.
Trump has met repeatedly with executives from the nation's largest defense contractors, pressing them to accelerate production and expand manufacturing capacity as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine strain U.S. stockpiles. After a White House meeting in March, Trump said the companies had agreed to quadruple production of what he called «Exquisite Class Weaponry,» including some of the military's most advanced missile systems. At a second meeting in June and at a defense summit in July, he urged industry leaders to move faster, telling executives: «We have the best quality in the world, but we need a little more speed.»
The push is reflected in the administration's budget priorities. Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget would more than triple spending on drones and autonomous systems while boosting investment in munitions production, missile defense and Tomahawk cruise missile procurement.