U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, has expressed support for Secretary Hegseth’s recent call to significantly expand the use of small drones within the U.S. military.
“Secretary Hegseth’s approach to buying hundreds of thousands of small drones for our military is exactly right. This summer, Chairman Rogers and I worked to ensure this was possible when we placed $2.5 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to build a strong American drone industry. This initiative taps into America’s innovative defense industry, following President Trump’s industry-first approach in his Drone Dominance executive order.”
Wicker pointed out that China has negatively impacted the U.S. drone sector through market manipulation and emphasized the need for renewed domestic production capacity: “For years, Communist China has destroyed our drone industry with market manipulation. It is time we reverse this trend. We need a booming American drone industry to equip our troops at a reasonable cost and to compete globally in commercial markets. This funding will jumpstart our industry and can be supported with significant loans from DOD’s Office of Strategic Capital as we open new factories across the United States. Combined with the FY25 NDAA’s Section 1709 restriction, which aims to curtail the proliferation of Chinese drones and equipment, we are entering a golden age for American-made drones.”
The $2.5 billion allocation referenced by Wicker was included in recent legislation designed to strengthen domestic drone manufacturing capabilities.