{"id":307,"date":"2025-07-16T19:19:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T19:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=307"},"modified":"2025-07-16T19:19:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T19:19:50","slug":"trump-trade-rep-pushes-defence-start-ups-to-fill-manufacturing-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"Trump trade rep pushes defence start-ups to fill manufacturing gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=2728dcb7-be8c-47ba-bab2-ccee30760854&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>The Trump administration has called on Silicon Valley\u2019s defence, space and energy start-ups to help restore America\u2019s industrial base and reduce its trade deficit, as it prepares to spend billions of dollars on high-tech military hardware. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cA country without robust manufacturing is hardly a country at all,\u201d US trade representative Jamieson Greer told the Reindustrialize conference in Detroit, where hundreds of start-ups had gathered to pitch their wares to venture capitalists and government officials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a $1.2tn trade deficit in goods\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009and it is financed by the largest debt burden of any country ever,\u201d Greer said. \u201cIf you fail to correct this status quo, it means that we\u2019re all just complicit in the loss of our industrial base, even more than we\u2019ve already lost it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his first major speech for months, Greer claimed that broad tariffs imposed by the White House on the US\u2019s trading partners were helping reshore manufacturing and had already led General Motors to invest $4bn in domestic output and move the production of two models made in Mexico back to the US.<\/p>\n<p>The US trade ambassador\u2019s comments come just weeks after the passing of President Donald Trump\u2019s flagship tax and spending bill, which was cheered by start-ups for increasing funding for defence technology, nuclear power and artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n<p>The bill allocated $25bn to fund the US\u2019s planned \u201cGolden Dome\u201d missile-defence system and set aside almost $30bn for shipbuilding and naval tech, among other projects \u2014 which is expected to benefit start-ups along with traditional defence players. <\/p>\n<p>The president has separately signed a series of executive orders aimed at speeding up procurement across government.<\/p>\n<p>Investors and start-ups gathered in Detroit were enthusiastic. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a real difference\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. particularly with the leadership in the Pentagon now, a real willingness to want to support industry, to support the defence sector, and to work with non-traditional\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009companies,\u201d said Christian Garrett, an investor at 137 Ventures, which has backed groups such as SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril.<\/p>\n<p>Louis Mosley, head of software company and government contractor Palantir\u2019s UK arm, who is presenting at the conference in Detroit said: \u201cThe animal spirits, the momentum, are extremely strong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe geopolitical environment has darkened significantly, and\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009you\u2019re starting to see big banks as well change their [environmental, social, and governance] policies, which historically have prevented them from supporting a lot of activity in defence,\u201d Mosley added.<\/p>\n<p>A series of smaller start-ups have also descended on Detroit, hoping to benefit from the boost in defence spending and the administration\u2019s pledge to invest in next-generation technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe [US] Marine Corps reached out to us,\u201d said Billy Thalheimer, co-founder of Regent, a company founded to build commercial sea gliders in the US that unveiled a new defence arm on Wednesday,<\/p>\n<p>The company, backed by Peter Thiel\u2019s Founders Fund, unveiled a new defence arm on Wednesday, which it said would build gliders to \u201csupport the US and its allies in countering the growing maritime national threat posed by China in the Indo-Pacific region\u201d.<\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title o3-type-body-highlight\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image o-teaser--opinion js-teaser\" data-id=\"36a6e200-27a3-412b-82cb-f36f62022a8a\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2289\/1288\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"o-teaser__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2F__origami%2Fservice%2Fimage%2Fv2%2Fimages%2Fraw%2Fhttps%253A%252F%252Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%252Fproduction%252F8a1464a1-dc65-4cb2-b6c8-c4c66d917f64.jpg%3Fsource%3Dnext-article%26fit%3Dscale-down%26quality%3Dhighest%26width%3D700%26dpr%3D1?source=next&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;dpr=2&amp;width=240\" alt=\"An Anvil-M drone at Anduril\u2019s headquarters in California\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The threat of a looming conflict between world powers has led governments worldwide to seek the assistance of such fledgling tech groups, said Greg Bernstein, a venture capitalist who co-founded the Reindustrialize conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe alarm bells have been appropriately raised as it relates to the readiness of the United States,\u201d he said. \u201cOur munitions are so low, we can\u2019t survive a sustained logistical campaign\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. that is now way out in the open for everybody to discuss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greer also urged American allies to support the rebuilding of America\u2019s industrial base \u201cif they expect that industrial base to come to their defence in times of crisis and war\u201d and reiterated that the administration would offer relief from tariffs for countries that helped with that effort.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#Trump #trade #rep #pushes #defence #startups #fill #manufacturing #gap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world The Trump administration has called on Silicon Valley\u2019s defence, space and energy start-ups to help restore America\u2019s industrial base and reduce its trade deficit, as it prepares to spend billions of dollars on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[200,535,537,536,533,532,534,107,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-defence","9":"tag-fill","10":"tag-gap","11":"tag-manufacturing","12":"tag-pushes","13":"tag-rep","14":"tag-startups","15":"tag-trade","16":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}