Trump hastens the apocalypse by demanding $1.5 trillion defence budget

US President Donald Trump has made his latest bid to push the Doomsday Clock to midnight by demanding a mammoth 50% increase in his already obscene war budget. Currently at $901bn, the war criminal-in-chief has asked that the figure undergo further bloat to reach $1.5 trillion.

The current budget is larger than that of the next 12 countries combined. If Trump’s increase goes ahead, it may surpass the entire world’s war spending combined. In a message on Truth Social, Trump said it would help build a “Dream Military”, and could be done via the:

…tremendous numbers being produced by Tariffs from other Countries…

The Financial Times reckon the tariffs will:

…only raise $2.5tn over 11 years — about $230bn a year — a sum far lower than the projected $500bn rise in defence spending.

The butcher of Gaza and Venezuela wrapped his turd of a proposal in populist dressing, saying:

Defense Contractors are currently issuing massive Dividends to their Shareholders and massive Stock Buybacks, at the expense and detriment of investing in Plants and Equipment. This situation will no longer be allowed or tolerated!

He threatened death-dealer Raytheon directly, saying:

Either Raytheon steps up, and starts investing in more upfront Investment like Plants and Equipment, or they will no longer be doing business with Department of War.

Despite this, the BBC reported that:

Shares in major US defence equipment makers Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon rose by more than 5% in extended trading in New York trade after Trump made the announcements.

Trump spending on arms doesn’t increase our safety, it reduces it

War secretary and cringey Islamophobe Pete Hegseth channelled Orwell’s 1984 by declaring:

$1.5 Trillion = PEACE through STRENGTH

President Trump is rebuilding our military — larger, stronger, and more lethal than ever before.

For a man marked by mendacity, Trump still managed to deploy one of his biggest whoppers when he claimed that the budget would keep Americans “SAFE and SECURE“.

The perverse logic of vast spending on instruments of death to protect life was eloquently debunked by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis recently. Speaking about Hague-dodger Keir Starmer for Declassified UK, Varoufakis referenced the 1930s. That period our so-called leaders seem intent on giving an unwelcome reprise.

Then, the Nazis relied on military-Keynesianism, a policy of boosting the economy and jobs through investment in arms. Varoufakis said:

Military-Keynesianism can work. It worked under Hitler. Within two years, Hitler eliminated his unemployment problem and really raised living standards substantially.

This is why he became so popular. Now the problem with that is – if you make the factories work at full blast, producing tanks and ammunition and bullets and all that stuff – at some point the warehouses fill up.

And then, politically it’s very difficult to explain why you keep spending money when your warehouses are full. So you need to empty them. And the only way of emptying them is by starting a war, which is what Hitler did.

Addressing Starmer, he continued:

…if you don’t do that, then this growth spurt, even if it takes place for a year or two…it will die out. And all you will end up with is higher indebtedness. So are you going to do what the Americans are doing? Are we going to be starting a war every year or other year?

World War II and the United States of Amnesia

As the carnage in Gaza and Venezuela indicates, along with threats to Greenland, this does appear to be Trump’s plan. That might boost the economy for a while. But if World War III is triggered and there’s no USA left, that seems a redundant gain. Every new aggression increases the risk of a conflict with another nuclear-armed power like Russia or China.

We seem to have reached a point in time where the distance from the last great conflagration has resulted in those with their finger on the big red button forgetting that war with modern weaponry is simply unviable for the survival of the species.

Former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower — while a criminal himself — at least had an involvement in World War II that enabled him to appreciate this danger. He famously warned of the military-industrial complex’s malign influence. The sway of an industry that thirsts for war is set to receive a massive boost if Trump’s plan goes ahead.

Noam Chomsky is another who remembers the lessons from 80 years ago. No more needs to be added to what he said in 2002:

Europe’s own favourite sport of mutual slaughter had to be called off in 1945, when it was realised that the next time the game was played would be the last.

Another prediction that we can make with fair confidence is that there won’t be a war among great powers; the reason is that if the prediction turns out to be wrong, there will be no one around to care to tell us.

Featured image via the Canary