President Donald Trump was elected with an electoral and popular mandate to make change. Change in American trade policy is at the top of that list. For too long, those policies gave primacy to those who outsource and offshore, hollowing out our ability to make things in America, including equipment and material vital to our military.

A federal appeals court ruled against a number of the president’s tariffs at the end of August. Trump blasted the decision, saying it would make us weak. He’s right.

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At the end of June, American B-2 Spirit bombers successfully executed Operation Midnight Hammer and obliterated Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. Less than two months later, on Aug. 14, one of these stealth bombers flew over the head of Russian President Vladimir Putin before he met with Trump in Alaska.

The B-2 stealth bomber has been an iconic symbol of American strength, innovation, and industry for decades. But over those decades, our industrial base has been picked apart, sold off, and sent overseas. Our great country now relies on foreign goods, foreign inputs, and foreign products for our defense. That’s not acceptable.

Thankfully, through new trade policies and real focus from the White House on our defense industrial base, that is beginning to change. Trump has advocated against this slow decay of American industry since the beginning of his first campaign. In 2016, he said, “Our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization — moving our jobs, our wealth and our factories … overseas.” That applies to everything from steel and ships to chemicals and computer chips.

We aren’t making more B-2 bombers. We soon might not be able to make any stealth aircraft without using industrial inputs and chemicals made by foreign producers. The B-2’s stealth capability is made possible, in part, by epoxy resins, which help with eluding radar detection. Just a few American companies make this chemical input now. But career bureaucrats’ inaction has allowed foreign nations to exploit the U.S. market, undermine free and fair competition with U.S. producers, and compromise part of our defense industrial base.

Competitors like China and even allies such as South Korea realized that due to our government’s bureaucratic shortcomings, they can dump heavily subsidized epoxy resins unchecked. The previous administration let these entities undercut American production. To no avail, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP sent a letter to Biden’s Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in October 2024, highlighting this exact problem and calling for the Department of Commerce to address the damaging effects of China’s overcapacity. Nothing happened. 

The Commerce Department, under pressure from American producers, finally conducted an investigation and issued meager anti-dumping duties calculated by the bureaucrats. It’s not enough. But that was before the new administration fully took the reins.

Since then, we’ve seen the president talk the talk and walk the walk to change the country’s direction. Speaking directly about defense industrial capacity, he told a joint session of Congress in March, “We used to make so many ships. We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.” Announcing “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, Trump acknowledged that “such horrendous imbalances have devastated our industrial base and put our national security at risk.”

On top of those reciprocal tariffs to restore fairness, the administration initiated a “Section 232” investigation to examine whether reliance on imported semiconductors (which also often use epoxy resins) is a threat to national security and may result in additional targeted tariffs.

But problems with our defense supply chain still remain. Chinese shipbuilding now dwarfs American production. Some report it has 230 times the capacity of the United States. Russia is now making more ammunition in three months than the U.S. and our allies can make in a year. This is why Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been so adamant about getting “urgency into the system” for American shipbuilding.

Before American industry was hobbled by decades of globalization, even our competitors hailed our abilities. Joseph Stalin toasted our industrial base, saying during WWII, “To American production, without which this war would have been lost.” FDR called us the “arsenal of democracy.” Because of policies past, we no longer merit a toast from anyone.

Past administrations have failed to account for deceptive trade practices from competitors that jeopardize the very systems that keep this country safe.

AN AUTOCRATIC TURKEY DOES NOT DESERVE US MILITARY AID

This administration is putting us back on track. In the new year, we have a chance to bring bureaucrats into line, recalculate dumping duties, and protect the supply chains that allow us to produce iconic equipment like the B-2. In the meantime, reciprocal tariffs, 232 investigations, and our new tougher approach are critical steps in rebuilding our national defense industrial base — from the basic inputs like epoxy to the supplies for warfighters like ammunition to final products like stealth aircraft.

It’s past time for American defenses to be manufactured in America.

Mark Lucas is the founder and president of Veteran Action, a former infantry officer for the Iowa Army National Guard, and a recipient of the Bronze Star and Combat Infantry Badge.