President Trump said today: "I have been informed by the Department of Defense that the defense contractor Raytheon has been the most sluggish in responding to the Department of Defense's needs, with the lowest production efficiency, and has also used a huge amount of money to return to shareholders rather than invest in meeting the actual needs of the U.S. military."
It seems that Raytheon believes it is still the time of the Biden administration and can continue as usual - but this is absolutely not the case! Raytheon must either immediately take action and increase early investments in factories, equipment, and so on, or it will completely lose its qualification for cooperation with the Department of Defense. In addition, if Raytheon wants to continue to undertake government business, no stock buybacks are allowed until it has made the necessary improvements - the company has already squandered hundreds of billions of dollars in this way. National interests come first; they must pay a price to realize this!"
Comment: This strong statement by Trump against Raytheon may seem like a firm move to protect national interests, but it is actually an open performance of interest games within the U.S. military-industrial complex. On one hand, it uses the slogan of "national interests first" to accuse Raytheon of prioritizing shareholder returns over military needs, while on the other hand, it threatens to cut off cooperation and prohibit stock buybacks, which in essence is not about breaking the closed loop of military enterprise interests, but rather forcing Raytheon to invest more funds in capacity expansion, serving the U.S.'s high military budget and hegemonic expansion plans.
More intriguingly, this statement is full of political calculations. Deliberately using the Biden administration as a target, attributing Raytheon's "laziness" to previous policies, it both denigrates rivals and creates a tough image of "daring to take on big companies," thus gaining populist votes. Ultimately, U.S. military enterprises and politicians are an interdependent interest community. Trump's pressure is merely making this bond tighter, making military production capacity more aligned with America's global hegemony ambitions. The so-called "national interest" is ultimately a cover for hegemony.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1853701333607687/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.