\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump has claimed he plans to crack down on executive compensation and shareholder payouts at military defense contractors, as his administration looks to dramatically <\/strong>ramp up spending on the armed forces.<\/p>\n In a series of <\/strong>posts on social media, the US president said he wants to increase the military budget to $1.5tn \u2013 and complained that <\/strong>defense giants had been failing to swiftly deliver \u201cvital\u201d equipment to the US and its allies across the world.<\/p>\n The firms are paying \u201cexorbitant\u201d salaries to their top executives and vast dividends to shareholders while equipment is \u201cNOT BEING MADE FAST ENOUGH\u201d, Trump said.<\/p>\n He said he would \u201cnot permit\u201d dividends and stock buybacks by defense companies, or allow them to pay executives more than $5m, until they started to accelerate deliveries and build new and modern production plants.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s intervention came days after US forces struck Venezuela and captured its president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. The Trump administration has also said it is examining \u201ca range of options\u201d to acquire Greenland, and noted that using the US military to do so is \u201calways an option\u201d.<\/p>\n On Truth Social, Trump wrote: \u201cAll United State Defense Contractors, and the Defense Industry as a whole, BEWARE: While we make the best Military Equipment in the World (No other Country is even close!), 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!<\/p>\n \u201cExecutive Pay Packages in the Defense Industry are exorbitant and unjustifiable given how slowly these Companies are delivering vital Equipment to our Military, and our Allies,\u201d he added. \u201cSalaries, Stock Options, and every other form of Compensation are far too high for these Executives.\u201d<\/p>\n In fiscal year 2024, the CEOs of Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics received more than $23.7m each in total compensation, the RTX CEO received more than $18m, and the Northrop Grumman CEO received more than $24.3m.<\/p>\n General Dynamics declined to comment. Lockheed Martin, RTX and Northrop Grumman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Trump has pushed military defense spending to nearly $1tn annually, signing a bill last month authorizing a record $901bn. But on Wednesday, he raised the prospect of increasing the overall budget to $1.5tn by 2027.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will allow us to build the \u2018Dream Military\u2019 that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe,\u201d Trump claimed.<\/p>\n Less than two hours earlier, he had ordered the US defense sector to curb its payments to executives and shareholders.<\/p>\n \u201cI will not permit Dividends or Stock Buybacks for Defense Companies until such time as these problems are rectified \u2013 Likewise, for Salaries and Executive Compensation,\u201d said Trump, without providing a legislative plan. \u201cMILITARY EQUIPMENT IS NOT BEING MADE FAST ENOUGH! It must be built now with the Dividends, Stock Buybacks, and Over Compensation of Executives, rather than borrowing from Financial Institutions, or getting the money from your Government.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has been told by officials that Raytheon, owned by RTX, has been \u201cthe least responsive to the needs\u201d of the Pentagon, \u201cthe slowest in increasing their volume, and the most aggressive spending on their Shareholders rather than the needs and demands of the United States Military\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cEither 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,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cAlso, if Raytheon wants further business with the United States Government, under no circumstances will they be allowed to do any additional Stock Buybacks, where they have spent Tens of Billions of Dollars, until they are able to get their act together. Our Country comes FIRST, and they\u2019re going to have to learn that, the hard way!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donald Trump has claimed he plans to crack down on executive compensation and shareholder payouts at military defense contractors, as his administration looks to dramatically ramp up spending on the armed forces. In a series of posts on social media, the US president said he wants to increase the military budget to $1.5tn \u2013 and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[303,21848,3095,2129,3298,661,1040,480,5965,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-40723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-buybacks","10":"tag-crackdown","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-executive","13":"tag-firms","14":"tag-pay","15":"tag-plans","16":"tag-stock","17":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}