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Our budget remains rooted in our 2022 National Defense Strategy. Our request positions the United States to tackle the Department’s pacing challenge — the People’s Republic of China — with confidence and urgency. It will help meet the acute threat of Putin’s increasingly aggressive Russia. It will help us tackle the persistent dangers from Iran and its proxies. It will help us take on threats from North Korea, global terrorist organizations, and other malign actors. And it will help us continue to deter aggression against the United States and our allies and partners — and to prevail in conflict if necessary.
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As the President has said, we are in a global struggle between democracy and autocracy. And our security relies on American strength of purpose.
That’s why our budget request seeks to invest in American security — and in America’s defense industrial base.
The same is true for the recently passed National Security Supplemental that will support our partners in Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan and make key investments to increase submarine production.
In fact, about $50 billion of this supplemental will flow through our defense industrial base, creating good American jobs in more than 30 states.
So we are grateful for our partners in Congress who help us make the investments needed to strengthen America’s security, through both the supplemental and the President’s budget request.
The U.S. military is the most lethal fighting force on Earth. And with your help, we’re going to keep it that way.
I deeply appreciate your support for our mission and our troops. And I look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
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Source: U.S. Department of Defense
Speaker: Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense
Format: Congressional Committee Hearing Remarks
China Policy Research 