Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum on Thursday to unleash “American Drone Dominance” following President Donald Trump’s executive order last month.
In a video shared Thursday on X, formerly Twitter, Hegseth said, “We know why we were put here. We were brought here to rebuild the military-match capabilities to the threats of today. “
Hegseth explained that America’s adversaries have “produced millions of cheap drones” while the United States was “mired in bureaucratic red tape” under previous administrations. However, the secretary of defense noted that the U.S. military would be making major changes to its drone production under Trump’s administration following the president’s “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” executive order released last month.
In Thursday’s video, Hegseth said Trump’s executive order will “bolster our drone industry and arm our warfighters, because that’s what we’re all about.”
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“So today, I’m rescinding restrictive policies that stifle production, and this will unleash American manufacturing and the ingenuity of our war fighters by doing three key things,” Hegseth added. “First, we’re going to bolster the US drone manufacturing base by producing thousands of American-made products, prioritizing buy American. We’ll arm combat units with a variety of low-cost American-crafted drones, leveraging our world-leading engineers and AI experts. And third, we’re going to train, as we expect to fight. Senior officers must overcome bureaucratic risk aversion in budgeting, weaponing, weaponeering, and training.”
At the end of Thursday’s video, Hegseth signed a memorandum that was delivered by drones controlled by the Pentagon’s “great warfighters.”
“This is the future,” Hegseth stated. “We’re in the fight. We’re in the fight to win it, and we’re never gonna back down.”
In a memorandum obtained by Fox News, Hegseth described drones as the “biggest battlefield innovation in a generation.” The secretary of defense announced that the Pentagon is going to increase the U.S. drone manufacturing base by authorizing the military’s purchase of hundreds of American-made products, arming the military’s combat units with “a variety of low-cost drones,” and by holding battlefield simulations that will allow military commanders to independently test drones.
“Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions, especially when it comes to harnessing technologies we invented but were slow to pursue,” Hegseth said. “Drone technology is advancing so rapidly, our major risk is risk-avoidance. The Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off.”