The Department of War on Monday announced a $22.9 billion contract with Raytheon to accelerate production of Tomahawk cruise missiles, the largest single munitions deal in recent memory, as President Trump dismissed concerns that the ongoing conflict with Iran has strained American weapons inventories.
“What we’ve used is peanuts,” Trump told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst in an exclusive phone interview Monday morning. “We have a lot of mid-level weapons.”
The contract, awarded by the U.S. Navy to Raytheon, a business unit of defense giant RTX, is designed to replenish long-range strike weapons, expand the nation’s munitions capacity, and shorten the timeline between factory floor and warfighter. It arrives against the backdrop of heightened global tensions and a military campaign that has burned through Tomahawk inventory at a pace that caught even defense planners’ attention.
The Washington Examiner reported that the seven-year contract targets production of more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles per year. That scale makes sense when set against the burn rate: the Navy fired more than 850 Tomahawks in just the first month of the Iran war alone, drawing down an estimated pre-war inventory of roughly 3,100 missiles.
Put another way, a single month of combat consumed more than a quarter of the entire stockpile.
The Navy’s fiscal 2027 budget request underscores how dramatically the calculus has shifted. The service asked for $3 billion to buy 785 Tomahawk missiles, up from $257 million allocated last year for just 58. That is not a marginal increase. It is an order-of-magnitude escalation in procurement ambition, driven by operational reality rather than peacetime planning.
Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey framed the contract as industry answering a direct call from the government.
“The Department called upon industry to expand munitions production, and RTX has answered that call. This Tomahawk award increases our ability to equip the Joint Force, ensuring our Warfighters never face a fair fight.”
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao went further, calling the deal a landmark investment. As Newsmax reported, Cao stressed the need to expand the munitions industrial base to meet current operational demands.
“Guaranteeing our naval and joint forces have the lethal firepower they need to deter aggression and protect the homeland is paramount. This landmark $22.9 billion investment will accelerate Tomahawk missile delivery to our warfighters at unprecedented speed.”
Cao added that the Department is “utilizing every available tool to meet the demands of our current operations, ensuring they are equipped to fight, win, and come home safe.”
Beyond the raw missile count, the deal is structured to give RTX the financial stability to expand its workforce, increase manufacturing output, and strengthen supply chains. Pentagon officials have grown increasingly focused on shortening the time required to produce key weapons, a problem that predates the current conflict but has been laid bare by it.
The contract also supports the Department of War’s Acquisition Transformation Strategy, an initiative aimed at accelerating weapons deliveries and cutting procurement lead times. The Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive Munitions, the office that oversees procurement and delivery of the service’s munitions and strike capabilities, is working to coordinate weapons programs with the industrial base to expand production capacity.
The Trump administration has moved aggressively on multiple fronts in recent months, from halting Iran strikes and announcing a deal while maintaining a naval blockade to rebuilding the very arsenal that sustained those operations.
Trump’s characterization of American weapons expenditure as “peanuts” will draw scrutiny from those who have raised alarms about stockpile depletion. The numbers tell a more complicated story. Firing 850 Tomahawks in a month is not a trivial draw on any inventory, and the sheer size of the Raytheon contract suggests the Pentagon itself views replenishment as an urgent priority, not a casual afterthought.
But there is a difference between acknowledging a logistical challenge and conceding strategic weakness. Trump’s posture appears calibrated to deny adversaries, Tehran chief among them, any comfort from reports of American supply strain. The president has consistently projected strength throughout the Iran conflict, and Monday’s remarks fit that pattern.
The broader diplomatic picture has also shifted. Global leaders have praised Trump’s Iran peace agreement as a signing nears, suggesting that the military pressure campaign, Tomahawk expenditure included, may have achieved its intended effect at the negotiating table.
Concerns about depleted inventories extend beyond the Iran theater. The U.S. has faced questions about air defense and precision-guided weapons stocks drawn down by arms supplied to allies as well as direct combat use. The Raytheon contract addresses one category of weapon, but the broader industrial base challenge remains.
A $22.9 billion single-award contract sends a message that extends well beyond the factory floor. It tells allies that the United States intends to maintain, and exceed, its pre-war striking power. It tells adversaries that American production capacity can scale to match operational demand. And it tells the defense industry that long-term, high-volume contracts are available to firms willing to invest in expanded capacity.
The administration has shown a willingness to commit significant resources across multiple fronts, whether deploying relief aid after natural disasters abroad or rebuilding the military’s striking power at home.
The Tomahawk itself has been a workhorse of American naval power for decades. Fox News reported that imagery from the contract announcement included a photo of the USS Thomas Hudner firing a Tomahawk land attack missile on March 1, 2026, in support of Operation Epic Fury, a reference that received no further elaboration but points to the missile’s active role in current operations.
Several questions remain unanswered. The precise delivery timeline for the new missiles has not been disclosed. Nor has the Pentagon specified how quickly production rates can ramp to the target of more than 1,000 per year. Defense manufacturing is constrained by supply chains, skilled labor, and component availability, none of which scale overnight, regardless of how large the check.
The administration has also been active on the diplomatic and economic fronts in the region, including directing U.S. airlines to resume direct flights to Lebanon following a White House summit, a move with both strategic and commercial implications.
Whether Trump’s “peanuts” line ages well depends on how fast Raytheon can deliver. The president bet that American industry can outproduce any adversary’s capacity to absorb punishment. That bet now has $22.9 billion riding on it.
For years, Washington debated whether the defense industrial base could surge production in a real conflict. The debate is over. The conflict arrived, the stockpiles dropped, and the bill came due. The only question left is whether the factories can keep up with the fight.
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