Long before China starved the Pentagon of raw materials, Wall Street was looting it
by Inside China Business [11-14-2025].
China's export bans on rare earth metals and magnets are crippling Western arms makers.
But while the Pentagon is racing to find new supplies and jump-start the decades-long process of replacing China in their supply chains, their biggest contractors have been sending most of their profits and cash to Wall Street investors.
Order backlogs today are hundreds of billions of dollars, for each of the major weapons makers. The Pentagon, along with NATO and other friendly countries, are waiting years for new systems already ordered and paid for.
Rather than re-invest necessary capital to build out manufacturing capacity, train and retrain top technicians, and fund new suppliers, companies spent tens of billions of dollars buying back their own shares, to push stock prices higher.
Closing scene, Miao Village, Guizhou
Resources and links
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Actions Needed to Address Late Deliveries and Improve Future Development [9-3-2025]
America Doesn’t Have Enough Weapons for a Major Conflict. These Workers Know Why. [10-27-2025]
EPA, Lean manufacturing at Lockheed Martin [1-19-2017]
F-35 stealth fighter deliveries have been falling farther and farther behind, watchdog finds [9-4-2025]
RTX Board of Directors Increases Quarterly Cash Dividend [5-2-2024]
Raytheon Form 8-K, share buyback announcement [10-22-2024]
America’s Carriers Rely on Chinese Chips, Our Depleted Munitions Too [1-9-2024]
Panic and production cuts at Pentagon suppliers as China tightens exports [8-7-2025] Our military defense contractors are heavily dependent on China for products. Maybe the US & NATO should reconsider waring against China!!!
China's new export ban on tungsten shocks defense contractors as Pentagon races to find new supply [2-14-2025] This is another example of outsourcing production of a critical product that comes back to bite us big time.
Chinese factories build fire trucks for $400,000 in six weeks. In the US it's $2 million in 4 years [4-19-2025] Be sure to listen to this very informative video about how dysfunctional building firetrucks in the US has become!!! Of course, we aren't allowed to buy them from China!!!