President Donald Trump acknowledged in an interview published Thursday that US stockpiles of "some" munitions have grown thinner after eight months of war with Iran, even as he insisted the American military is in "great shape" and vowed to rebuild supplies to "levels we've never done before."
"Some forms of ammunition are a little bit lower than other forms. We have that middle grade and upper middle grade, which is very powerful," Trump told Time magazine, adding that US weapons manufacturers were building new plants around the country to produce Patriot and THAAD interceptors. He did not specify which munitions were running short.
The admission follows a Pentagon inspector general report, published in mid-July, that found the war had caused shortfalls in critical munitions and a bottleneck in resupply — an assessment Trump dismissed at the time as "mostly fake news." Independent analysts have reached similar conclusions. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated in July that stocks of some interceptors, including the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems, had been depleted by more than half in some cases, as US forces worked to shoot down waves of Iranian missiles and drones.
A War Without a Clear End
The conflict began in late February, by Trump's own account to lawmakers, and has consumed vast quantities of both long-range strike weapons and the missile-defense systems used to intercept Iranian retaliation. A ceasefire reached in April has been extended repeatedly and violated just as repeatedly by both sides. In June, after a new round of American strikes on Iranian territory, Iran's foreign ministry said the attacks had rendered the truce "virtually meaningless."
"The responsibility for the extremely serious consequences of this criminal act lies with the leadership of the United States."
Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Over the weekend, Trump said he had rejected a renewed Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, calling the offer "just not good enough." Asked about the war's trajectory, he told Time that a resumption of full-scale hostilities was "possible" after November's elections — a reversal from his early-September prediction that the war would "end immediately after the election because they can't hold out any longer" and that Iran was "desperate to try and affect the election."
Three US aircraft carriers have rotated through the region since the war began, the largest sustained American naval presence in the Middle East in more than two decades, as Washington has tried to pressure Tehran toward a lasting settlement without declaring the conflict over.
Weighing on the Midterms
The war's drag on household budgets is becoming a political liability heading into next month's elections. Only 17% of US adults approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living, and just 26% approve of his handling of the economy overall — a new low — according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Thursday. Republican campaign strategists have said privately that souring views of the president's economic stewardship, including rising prices tied to the war, could cost the party seats in races that will decide control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump brushed off the polling in the Time interview as "fake numbers" and said he intends to campaign heavily for Republican candidates in the campaign's final weeks. "I think we'll do okay if I campaign, and I intend to," he said. "If I campaign for people, those people are going to win."
For now, the administration has offered no public timeline for resupplying the interceptor stocks that CSIS and the Pentagon's own watchdog say have been drawn down, nor any detail on how deeply the shortages might constrain US options if the ceasefire collapses again before voters go to the polls.
