How much the US contributes to Israel's own defense program
Shares of major defense contractors Lockheed Martin (LMT), RTX (RTX), General Dynamics (GD), and Northrop Grumman (NOC) are seeing gains Friday morning following Israel's airstrikes against Iran.
Brad Smith dives into the defense sector's stock moves and the United States' contributions to Israel's defense program.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
Defense stocks rising this morning following Israeli attacks on Iran. Contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon trading higher on expectations that the increased tensions and possibility of a larger scale conflict will result in additional military spending. Lockheed Martin led US defense funding in 2024 with $65 billion in contracts over the course of the year. RTX, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, and Boeing, they rounded out the top five with between 30 and $40 billion each in total contracts. While Secretary of State, Marco Rubio confirmed that the US was not involved in the initial Israeli attack, the US does provide defense funding to Israel with a record $18 billion in military aid in the first calendar year of the war in Gaza. The US also approved $20 billion in arms sales in Israel in a deal this past August. Raytheon specifically partners with Israeli companies to maintain its Iron Dome and David's Sling missile defense systems. In May, President Trump called for $25 billion from the current budget to begin building a similar system in the US called the Golden Dome. Estimates of the total cost of the system are $175 billion.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
7 minutes ago
- The Hill
US should stay out of war in Middle East: Retired colonel
Following Israeli strikes on Iran, one retired military officer told NewsNation, The Hill's sister network, that the U.S. should stay out of the fight. Iran has already vowed retaliation and the U.S. has shifted military assets into the region in case they are needed. Retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis told NewsNation that the path forward depends on whether Iran chooses to prioritize revenge or regime survival, with revenge being the more dangerous option. 'Iran can bring substantial damage to Israel if they choose to go down the path of revenge, because then they're not going to be concerned about what happens next,' he said. 'They're going to be concerned about how much damage they can cause in the meantime.' Iran could consider the U.S. involved in the attack because it had forewarning and because the country supplies military aid to Israel. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied any U.S. involvement in the initial attack and President Trump has urged Iran to reach a deal on dismantling its nuclear program. 'I will just categorically say that no matter what happens in terms of Israel and Iran, we should not get involved,' Davis said. 'It is not our war to fight.' 'It shouldn't have started at all, and we should not sacrifice American troops, which we surely would do if we get into a fight there,' he said.
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why Trump Is the Most Impotent President in Living Memory
President Donald Trump is rapidly becoming even more of a punchline on the world stage, according to foreign policy expert David Rothkopf, who appeared on Friday's episode of The Daily Beast Podcast to deliver a scathing assessment of Trump's global irrelevance. 'I would argue he may be the most impotent president of the United States that we've seen in our lifetimes,' Rothkopf told host Joanna Coles. 'He's alienated our allies, undermined our economy, attacked the international system—and he hasn't made a single deal.' The former Clinton administration official and regular Daily Beast contributor painted a picture of a leader increasingly out of his depth. The latest example of Trump's ineptitude? His seemingly impulsive decision to claim credit for Friday's Israeli air strikes on Iran—even after his own Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied prior knowledge and said Israel had acted 'unilaterally.' Both Trump and the Israelis then scrambled to make the attack look like a joint effort. 'Trump wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral,' Rothkopf quipped, mocking the president's need to put himself at the center of every news story. It's far from the only instance. Rothkopf criticized the president's self-proclaimed deal-making prowess, which has yet to yield any actual deals. 'It's just not the same as cutting a real estate deal in New York City with your cronies,' Rothkopf said. Rothkopf also ripped into Trump's gutted National Security Council, his refusal to sit for intelligence briefings, and his obsession with optics over outcomes. 'Tulsi Gabbard is trying to make intelligence briefings look like a Fox News show because that's the only thing Trump will watch,' he said. International leaders aren't buying the act either, according to Rothkopf. 'People are making fun of Trump publicly on stage,' he said. 'They just don't think he's a serious character.' While the international order appears increasingly fragmented, Trump is sending in both the National Guard and the military against protests described by the administration as an 'insurrection.' There could not be a worse time to have someone as incompetent as Trump in charge of the country, Rothkopf argues. 'People around the world look at it and they say the U.S. is collapsing.'
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tucker Carlson Blasts Trump for Being ‘Complicit' in Israel's Attack on Iran
Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson made waves on Friday when he criticized not only President Donald Trump, whom he described as being 'complicit' in Israel's attack on Iran, but also former Fox News pals like Sean Hannity and Rupert Murdoch for acting as 'warmongers.' In his Friday morning newsletter, Carlson wrote of Trump's prior knowledge of the attack on Iran, 'While the American military may not have physically perpetrated the assault, years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social, undeniably place the U.S. at the center of last night's event.' He continued, 'Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be America First can't now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it. Our country is in deep.' 'It's worth taking a step back and wondering how any of this helps the United States," Carlson added. 'We can't think of a single way.' In another piece of commentary, Carlson explicitly stated his position, writing, 'The United States should not at any level participate in a war with Iran. No funding, no American weapons, no troops on the ground.' He continued, calling on the Trump administration to 'drop Israel [and] let them fight their own wars… If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so. It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases. But not with America's backing.' Carlson cited concerns over American involvement in the conflict having the potential to 'whip up the radical Islamic world's hatred for the West and fuel the next generation of terrorism,' but also the risk of 'thousands of immediate American deaths, all in the name of a foreign agenda that has nothing to do with our country.' He added, 'We reject the idea of involving the U.S. in an Israeli war for the same reason we would stand against doing the same thing on behalf of Eritrea, Suriname, Cambodia, or any other random country you could close your eyes and point at on a map. It is not America's fight.' 'Engaging in it would be a middle finger in the faces of the millions of voters who cast their ballots in hopes of creating a government that would finally put the United States first,' he continued. 'What happens next will define Donald Trump's presidency.' Later on Friday, Carlson took to X to call out, by name, the 'warmongers' who are 'calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct U.S. military involvement in a war with Iran.' Among them? Former Fox News pals Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rupert Murdoch. An op-ed published on Hannity's website Friday argued that Israel was 'serving the entire world' and 'fending off extinction,' and that 'The rest of the Middle East, indeed the world, gets to free-ride on Israel's bold self-defense.' In an appearance on Kudlow, Levin argued that Israel was 'fighting a war for the people who believe in liberty' and for the West, 'whether the people in the west know it or not.' He added, 'We should be rooting for, praying for, the State of Israel, the people of Israel.'
