Fox News contributor Joey Jones argued Saturday that the United States’ current munitions shortages are the result of years of underproduction rather than policies implemented by President Donald Trump.
Speaking on Fox News’s Big Weekend Show, Jones pointed to the limited production of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system, saying the nation has struggled for years to manufacture enough of the interceptors to meet growing demand.
“We were making about 84 of those a year since they came on line,” Jones said. “We’ve made 1,000 ever.”
According to Jones, the Trump administration’s Golden Dome policy included plans to significantly increase production, with a goal of manufacturing 400 THAAD systems annually. However, he said the company responsible for producing the missiles indicated that such an increase could not happen immediately.
“We had a plan in place under the Golden Dome policy to make 400 a year,” Jones said. “So, the company that makes those said, ‘The earliest we can speed that up would be 2028.’”
Jones explained that expanding missile production involves more than simply opening new facilities. He said specialized manufacturing equipment must first be built before production can increase.
“You can’t make new machines needed to make these missiles,” he said. “So, like the idea, well we’re making new factories. Well, yeah, you might take a year to make the factory, and then the year after that we’re pumping more out.”
Even if production capacity were doubled, Jones argued, the timeline would still leave the U.S. facing shortages in the near term.
“So, you can speed this up by 100% and you’re still more than a year out,” he said. “It’s still a problem.”
Jones acknowledged that there are existing gaps in U.S. military capabilities but argued those shortcomings developed over decades rather than during Trump’s presidency.
“There are gaps,” he said. “The same capabilities that exist on ships, we might be able to speed those up, and there’s things there, but you can’t sugarcoat over the problem, which is, we’ve spent the last 20 years not making enough of these.”
He maintained that the shortage “isn’t President Trump-created problem” and said Trump had attempted to address the issue through the Golden Dome initiative, which Jones said drew criticism when it was first proposed.
“It’s a real gap in the military that needs to be looked at,” Jones said.
Jones also argued that having additional THAAD systems available would provide the United States with greater leverage abroad. He said countries in the Middle East seeking access to the missile defense systems would be more likely to support U.S. objectives if sufficient inventories existed.
“There’s a strategic advantage and it’s a relatively cheap one compared to nuclear war,” he said.
Not everyone agrees with Jones’s assessment. Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who served under President Barack Obama, blamed the Trump administration and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for the situation during an appearance on CNN this week.
“I don’t care what excuses you want to use, it should not have happened,” Panetta said. “And I know that the secretary blamed the deputy secretary, blamed others, but frankly, the buck stops with him.”
