{"text":[[{"start":7.65,"text":"US defence contractors are struggling to meet Pentagon demands to boost munitions production, amid a rush to replenish missile stockpiles depleted in the Iran war."}],[{"start":17.450000000000003,"text":"The backlog in US weapons manufacturing is expected to dominate a White House meeting on Wednesday between Donald Trump and the top American defence companies."}],[{"start":27.050000000000004,"text":"The president has excoriated the companies for putting money into dividends and share buybacks rather than expanding production, but on Monday said “they can’t do that anymore”. "}],[{"start":36.900000000000006,"text":"At issue is the administration’s effort to rebuild conventional weapons stockpiles at the same time it regears munitions production for modern warfare, seeding a new generation of defence companies to produce drones and other simple, lower-cost systems. "}],[{"start":54.00000000000001,"text":"Lockheed Martin broke ground last month on a new facility in Alabama, while fellow primary contractors Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and L3Harris are also investing billions of dollars in expanding their manufacturing footprints."}],[{"start":68.75,"text":"But the companies and their suppliers face obstacles ranging from procurement regulations and uneven government spending to chronic shortages of vital components and qualified labour."}],[{"start":78.85,"text":"According to PwC research the five largest so-called US defence primes had a combined backlog of undelivered orders of $1.36tn through 2025, up 24 per cent on the year before."}],[{"start":93.1,"text":"Jen Stewart, executive vice-president at the National Defense Industrial Association, which represents US defence companies, said there was a “bipartisan consensus” in Washington over the necessity for “speed and reducing barriers to letting the companies go faster”."}],[{"start":109.55,"text":"But she added that the shrivelling of the US defence industrial base, which had 51 prime contractors in the early 1990s but just five today, “took 30 years to accumulate, and it’s not going to be solved in one year”."}],[{"start":123.6,"text":"The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the White House meeting, which will also be attended by the UK’s BAE Systems, but the Trump administration has described its mission as putting the US defence industry back on a “wartime footing”. "}],[{"start":138.29999999999998,"text":"That will require a transformation of what Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defence programme at the Center for a New American Security think-tank in Washington, describes as an “invisible industrial base” of small suppliers for critical materials and components."}],[{"start":153.39999999999998,"text":"These companies struggle to raise capital for investments in new equipment, tooling or capacity, especially when “one year the US government wants to buy 50 Tomahawks, and the next year they want to buy a thousand”."}],[{"start":165.64999999999998,"text":"“The US domestic manufacturing base that underpins the primes is really in a pretty poor state,” Pettyjohn said. “You cannot just surge production of one or two components — you have to fix the entire system.”"}],[{"start":178.09999999999997,"text":"The Trump administration has awarded longer seven-year “framework agreements” for munitions purchases in order to give defence primes and their suppliers confidence to expand production. "}],[{"start":187.99999999999997,"text":"Under defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s “acquisition transformation strategy”, the Pentagon has also moved to simplify the procurement process, encourage “second source” suppliers and prioritise commercially available solutions over bespoke defence products."}],[{"start":204.84999999999997,"text":"But companies note that even if all the right incentives were in place, they would still struggle to overcome acute material constraints. "}],[{"start":212.64999999999998,"text":"Stewart of the NDIA identified shortages in areas ranging from rare earths and critical minerals to explosives and specialist processing of chemicals, as well as shortages of skilled workers with the necessary security clearances."}],[{"start":225.79999999999998,"text":"A NDIA survey this year suggested industry concerns over the burden of complying with government requirements were growing more acute, with 50 per cent of companies citing it as a pressing issue compared with 23 per cent last year."}],[{"start":239.2,"text":"“There are more bespoke requirements, you have unstable budgets and then you have protracted timelines between when an award is announced and when there’s an actual contract,” she said."}],[{"start":250.89999999999998,"text":"Jim Will, a director at Minnesota chip manufacturer SkyWater Technology, said defence primes were also struggling to find domestic sources of microelectronics for their missiles."}],[{"start":262.4,"text":"“The electronics in Tomahawk missiles aren’t two years old, they’re 10 years old, 15 years old,” he said. “But because of offshoring or other reasons, the US [fabrication plant] that built that chip 10 years ago isn’t around anymore.”"}],[{"start":276.75,"text":"As part of its production push, the Pentagon is turning to a new generation of defence groups that rely more on commercial technologies and practices. "}],[{"start":285.5,"text":"The government announced framework agreements last month with four companies — Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos and Zone 5 — to produce more than 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles over three years from 2027."}],[{"start":298.25,"text":"William Greenwalt, a former Lockheed executive and Pentagon official, said the goal was to make the US defence industry “more like Silicon Valley”, focused more on speed, risk-taking and continuing to develop products after they are deployed rather than waiting for the “perfect solution”."}],[{"start":313.85,"text":"“This is how the defence industry used to work in the 1950s, when it produced Silicon Valley in the first place,” he said. “Right now we have a traditional side and a non-traditional side of the industry, and we need to bring the two together.”"}],[{"start":327.6,"text":"Jerry McGinn, a former Pentagon acquisition official who is now director of the centre for the industrial base at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington, said the amount of money going to new entrants had “increased dramatically” over the past decade."}],[{"start":344.70000000000005,"text":"But he warned that without deeper procurement reform, these new companies would run up against many of the same challenges as their more established peers."}],[{"start":353.25000000000006,"text":"Pettyjohn said another way for the US to boost defence production would be to increase foreign production partnerships to overcome domestic bottlenecks and increase overall demand, spurring investment."}],[{"start":365.20000000000005,"text":"But she added the Trump administration’s “preference for America first, America only for production makes that politically unpalatable for a lot of other nations."}],[{"start":375.20000000000005,"text":"“I suspect a lot of countries are going to be turning to alternative suppliers because they’re going to be number 22 in the queue for a Patriot missile,” she added."}],[{"start":385.75000000000006,"text":"Additional reporting by James Politi in Washington and Sylvia Pfeifer in London"}],[{"start":398.1500000000001,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782287962_7030.mp3"}