US President Donald Trump has invoked the Defence Production Act in a bid to bolster weapons stockpiles that critics say have been strained by the war in Iran and other conflicts.
This came as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a telephone call with his Pakistani counterpart on Tuesday during which they spoke about the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.
That MOU, announced on Sunday with few details, aims at ending the 109-day war started by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February that has largely closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz, driving up energy prices and fuelling inflation.
“China is ready to strengthen strategic communication and coordination with Pakistan, make joint efforts to promote peace and stop the war,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a readout of Wang’s call with Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister.
“The two sides agreed to jointly promote a ceasefire, the end of hostilities, and the resumption of peace talks; to ensure the safety of non-military targets and shipping lanes; and to support the United Nations in playing a primary role,” it added.
In other developments, Iran’s military threatened on Tuesday to respond militarily to Israel after strikes in southern Lebanon killed four people. This came despite the US-Iran deal to supposedly end the Middle East war, including in Lebanon.
“If the child-killing army of the Zionist regime does not put an end to its acts of aggression in southern Lebanon, it should await a harsh response from the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the Iranian military’s central command Khatam al-Anbiya in a statement.
It added that Israel had violated the ceasefire in Lebanon “84 times” since the deal was announced.
In invoking the production act, meanwhile, Trump ordered Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to make “voluntary agreements and plans of action” to address “systemic constraints” in the US defence industrial base, according to a memo dated June 11 and posted in the Federal Register.
It was not immediately clear what those agreements might entail and how far they might go beyond the administration’s ties with such defence contractors as Lockheed Martin Corp and RTX Corp.
The production act is a powerful tool created in 1950 during the Korean war that grants the president authority to commandeer industry into producing what is seen as essential hardware.
As the definition of national security has eroded, however, what was once a dire move has been invoked dozens of times by presidents to speed up production tied to everything from epidemics and energy crises to baby milk formula and beef shortages.
And it is used tens of thousands of times each year at lower levels of government that never make the news, including extensive use by the Pentagon to jump-start production.
“The Pentagon estimated its DPA authority usage at approximately 300,000 times a year for a wide range of military equipment, from Air Force One components to ballistic missile defence systems,” the Baker Institute said in a recent report.
“The act was not deployed once but five times in a single day,” in April, it added.
The 15-week Iran conflict has led to concern in Congress, at the White House and beyond that the US has stretched its resources, drawing down stockpiles of critical munitions, that could jeopardise the Pentagon’s ability to respond to another crisis in the near future.
Trump administration officials have emphasised a need to limit resources to allies and partners, such as war-torn Ukraine, as part of a drive to prioritise the domestic industrial base even as they have dismissed vulnerability concerns.
“The munitions issue has been foolishly and unhelpfully overstated,” Hegseth said last month. “We have plenty of what we need.”
The expenditure of weapons and materiel has seen the US pause arms sales packages to Taiwan. Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao told lawmakers recently that this was meant to “make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury”, referring to the campaign name given to US operations against Iran.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
Invoking the Cold War-era Defence Production Act allows the president to take unilateral actions to bolster US national defence capabilities and is a marked escalation of administration efforts to replenish weapons stockpiles.
Congress has been focused on shoring up critical munitions by boosting funding and authorising multi-year contracts for weapons including RTX’s SM-3 and SM-6 interceptor missiles, Lockheed Martin’s THAAD as well as Patriot systems with RTX and RTX-made Tomahawks.
“We need to do that,” said Senator Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We need to utilise that.”
Chinese state media did not say how long the call between Wang and Dar lasted but said Pakistan thanked China for supporting Pakistan’s mediation efforts in recent months and looked forward to their joint cooperation in promoting a ceasefire.
Negotiations in the next stage were likely to be more difficult than those that led to the MOU, Wang told Dar, according to state broadcaster CGTN.
Now that the door to peace has been opened, it should not be closed again, Wang reportedly said, adding that the Middle East has suffered from conflict for too long and that its people deserve peace. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
