WASHINGTON (Feb 19): The Pentagon said on Wednesday that it was directing military leaders to draw up a list of potential cuts totalling about US$50 billion (RM221.41 billion) from the upcoming budget for fiscal year 2026, to be redirected into US President Donald Trump's priorities for national defence.

The review could set the stage for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to follow through with goals to invest more in the Asia Pacific, and prioritise securing the US border with Mexico, along with other reforms.

It was unclear how the effort would square with other cost-savings initiatives led by Elon Musk's government downsizing teams, which have started working from the Pentagon, as civilian employees brace for job cuts.

Robert Salesses, performing the duties of the deputy defense secretary, said the military would develop a list of potential savings after examining the budget drawn up by the previous administration of president Joe Biden.

"The offsets are targeted at 8% of the Biden administration's FY2026 budget, totalling around US$50 billion, which will then be spent on programmes aligned with President Trump's priorities," Salesses said.

The statement clarifies a memo reported on Wednesday by Reuters from Hegseth, who asked some parts of the military to propose what could be cut as part of a potential 8% spending reduction for them over each of the next five years, US officials said on Wednesday.

There was a long list of exemptions, including US Indo-Pacific Command, funding for the military's mission along the US border with Mexico, as well as missile defence and autonomous weapons, one of the officials said.

The military's commands that oversee operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa were not exempt.

The Pentagon's budget is approaching US$1 trillion per year. In December, then-president Joe Biden signed a bill authorising US$895 billion in defence spending for the fiscal year ending Sept 30.

Hegseth has said publicly that the Pentagon's focus is on US border security and threats posed by China. He has said that the US can no longer be "primarily focused on the security of Europe".

As Musk's teams start their review, some civilian employees in the military said they had started receiving emails on Thursday, saying they could be separated from the government, since they were hired less than a year ago.

Leaders from across the political spectrum have long criticised waste and inefficiency at the Defense Department. But Democrats and civil service unions have said that Musk, the world's richest person, lacks the expertise to restructure the Pentagon, and that the efforts of his team risk exposing classified programmes.

Attempting to cancel defence programs could trigger pushback from lawmakers to defend spending in their electoral districts, a fact defence contractors are well aware of.

The F-35 fighter jet, for example, has suppliers located in all 50 US states, a point Lockheed makes with a map on its website, detailing the economic value derived from production of the jets. 

Musk, himself a major US defence contractor, has a particular disdain for certain defence projects, especially the F-35. He has posted on X that "Some US weapons systems are good, albeit overpriced, but please, in the name of all that is holy, let us stop the worst military value for money in history, that is the F-35 programme!"

Uploaded by Liza Shireen Koshy