President Trump, who calls himself a peacemaker and unifier, has announced he will seek a $1 trillion budget for the Pentagon, a record-setting number that would mark the highest level of U.S. defense spending since World War II.

Flaunting his military might while referring to the plan, Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, “You are really going to like this,” and “We have never done this before.”

Trump recently sent $4 billion in weapons to Israel to wage unprecedented aerial and ground attacks on innocent people in Gaza.

This massive budget increase would reward Pentagon contractors, like Lockheed Martin, newer Silicon Valley militarists (AI weaponry) and billionaire Elon Musk ($6 billion for SpaceX, Starship and Starlink.)

In 1961, former president and general Dwight D Eisenhower expressed his fear that our country’s military industrial complex was a threat to both liberty and the democratic process.

Eisenhower described high levels of arms spending as “a theft from those who hunger and are not fed” amid an ever-present threat of war, with “humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” 

President Trump should be engaging in diplomacy and negotiating fair trade, not preparing for a war with China. We are losing our allies who would aid in our defense.

We urge every American to demand investments in healthcare, housing, jobs and social programs that safeguard the economic well-being of individuals and families and to reject this administration’s reckless war mongering.

Ann Pitcaithley

Wailuku