On May 3, 2022, US President Joe Biden visited the Lockheed Martin plant in Troy (Alabama), which is the parent company of the joint venture JV Javelin of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon corporations, which produces the anti-tank missile system of the same name. In a speech during a visit to this plant, President Biden called on the US Congress to approve as soon as possible the package of additional US aid to Ukraine proposed by the administration in the amount of $ 33 billion, including $ 20 billion in military aid. The American network resource "Ahios" published material on the eve of Biden's visit to Troy Hans Nichols "Biden learns to love defense contractors" ("Biden is learning to love defense contractors").
US President Joe Biden during a visit to the Lockheed Martin Corporation plant for the production of the Javelin anti-tank missile system. Troy (Alabama), 03.05.2022 (c) Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
When US President Biden goes to the Javelin missile production plant in Troy, Alabama, on Tuesday [April 3], he will caress a group that his immediate Democratic predecessors kept at a distance: defense contractors.
Why it matters: Along with the energy industry, Biden needs defense contractors in this wartime. Besides wanting more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, he also wants to send a clear message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"This will be the most publicized visit by a Democrat to a defense contractor since Michael Dukakis jumped into a tank" [during the 1988 election campaign, which was one of Dukakis' failed steps, - bmpd], Joe Sirincione, a researcher at the Queens Institute for Responsible Public Administration, told Axios. - "You can bet that his [Biden's] team is acting with a long view."
In his budget for fiscal year 2023, Biden asked Congress to increase US military spending by 4% - for a total of $813 billion. And in Troy, he will arrange a holiday in honor of the Javelin anti-tank missile system, which US President Barack Obama refused to send to Ukraine.
"He won't have any serious opposition to such a large [military] budget," said Sirincione, former president of the weapons nonproliferation group Roughshares Fund, "The arms control and peace community is too weak and ineffective to punish him."
Biden will also use his visit to Lockheed Martin to put pressure on Congress to pass a bill to increase competitiveness with respect to China [America COMPETES Act of 2022].
Biden will make a clear connection between support for Ukraine and the bill on the allocation of $ 55 billion for the U.S. semiconductor industry. Each Javelin rocket requires more than 200 semiconductor chips.
The passage of this bill is a priority for the US president, but he needs the House of Representatives and the Senate to resolve their differences.
Just as Biden needs the oil and gas industry to ramp up production to lower gas station prices, the US president wants defense contractors to produce more of their products to help defeat Russia and President Putin.
But the defense industry craves more than just rhetoric. She wants the Pentagon to propose and sign new contracts.
"You communicate with the private sector on a contractual basis," Eric Fanning, who served as Secretary of the Army under Barack Obama, told Axios. "That means you have to send a very clear signal about demand," said Fanning, who is now president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Aerospace Industries Association.
Some lawmakers also want Biden to apply the Defense Manufacturing Act [of 1941]. This will allow to mobilize resources and give priority to the production of Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Greg Hayes, executive director of Raytheon Corporation, which also produces Javelin and Stinger missiles, said last week that increasing production "will take us a little time," according to the Defense News publication.
Ukraine has requested the delivery of 500 Javelin missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles - of each type - per day, CNN reported.
The Lockheed plant in Troy can produce up to 2,100 Javelin missiles per year.
The United States has already sent 5,500 Javelin anti-tank complexes to Ukraine "to support the struggle of the Ukrainian people for freedom," White House press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday [May 2].
At the same time, the US defense industry has suffered from inflation, and some industry insiders privately suggest that Biden's increase in the defense budget will lead to a reduction in actual values.
The US administration has also made it clear that it will not exempt the defense industry from its strict antitrust approach. In particular, she sued to block Lockheed Martin's planned acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne.
US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party Michael Dukakis in the 1988 elections makes a trip on the M1A1 Abrams tank at the General Dynamics Corporation in Sterling Heights (Michigan), 09/13/1988 (c) www.politico.com