{"id":8431,"date":"2025-12-19T02:18:41","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T02:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/19\/trump-signs-1tn-annual-us-defense-bill-without-fanfare-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T02:18:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T02:18:41","slug":"trump-signs-1tn-annual-us-defense-bill-without-fanfare-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/19\/trump-signs-1tn-annual-us-defense-bill-without-fanfare-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump signs $1tn annual US defense bill without fanfare – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Donald Trump on Thursday signed into law a nearly $1tn annual defense policy bill, despite provisions inserted by Congress providing new aid to Ukraine and reining in his ability to dial down US involvement in the defense of Europe.<\/p>\n

The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes a record $901bn in annual military spending, $8bn more than Trump requested.<\/p>\n

The sweeping legislation determines everything from how many ships, aircraft and missile systems are bought, to a pay raise for the troops, to how to address geopolitical threats.<\/p>\n

The White House announced the president had signed it. It was a quiet affair, with no Oval Office signing ceremony attended by reporters, as has become customary during Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

The measure is a compromise, combining separate measures approved by the House of Representatives and Senate, both of which are under Republican control.<\/p>\n

The NDAA includes several provisions to boost security in Europe.<\/p>\n

Trump has been cool to bolstering European security, arguing the allies should pay their own way. His recently published national security strategy is seen as friendly to Russia, hostile to the European Union and a reassessment of the US relationship with the continent.<\/p>\n

The fiscal 2026 NDAA provides $800m for Ukraine \u2013 $400m in each of the next two years \u2013 as part of the Ukraine security assistance initiative, which pays US companies for weapons for Ukraine\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

It comes as Trump\u2019s team continues protracted negotiations with Ukraine and Russia in a bid to bring about a halt to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The defense law also authorizes the Baltic security initiative and provides $175 million to support Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia\u2019s defense. And it limits the Department of Defense\u2019s ability to drop the number of US forces in Europe to fewer than 76,000 and bars the US European commander from giving up the title of Nato supreme commander.<\/p>\n

The White House said in a statement that Trump backed the bill because it codifies into law aspects of many of his executive orders, including funding his \u201cGolden Dome\u201d missile defense system and eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

Members of Congress have passed the NDAA every year for 65 straight years, though that streak almost ended during Trump\u2019s first term. Trump vetoed the NDAA in December 2020<\/a>, because he objected to its call to rename military bases and other facilities named for Confederate figures and disagreed with its approach to legal protections for tech companies, among other issues.<\/p>\n

However, Congress overrode his veto<\/a> in January 2021, just before he left office, the only veto override of Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump on Thursday signed into law a nearly $1tn annual defense policy bill, despite provisions inserted by Congress providing new aid to Ukraine and reining in his ability to dial down US involvement in the defense of Europe. The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes a record $901bn in annual military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}