The Trump administration is pushing to transform the United States into a dominant force in military drones, with Pentagon technology chief Emil Michael emphasizing that Washington is now treating drone production as a strategic national-security priority. Michael said the administration is stimulating domestic manufacturing of both critical components and complete drone systems so the United States can rapidly increase production when military demand surges. The effort is designed to create a more resilient American industrial base and reduce vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign suppliers.

The strategy goes well beyond simply buying more drones. The Pentagon has been working with American manufacturers to expand production of propulsion, power, control and vision systems, while new financing is being directed toward factories capable of producing those components at high volume. In July, the Office of Strategic Capital announced a conditional loan commitment of up to $820 million to Performance Drone Works specifically to establish large-scale domestic manufacturing capacity for critical drone components.

At the center of the push is the $1.1 billion Drone Dominance Program, which the War Department designed to rapidly field inexpensive, one-way attack drones at enormous scale. The program uses competitive “Gauntlet” evaluations to test systems from multiple manufacturers, with the Pentagon saying the program will increase production volumes while driving down unit costs and could field hundreds of thousands of weaponized drones by 2027. In February, the department announced 25 companies selected for the first phase, with approximately $150 million in prototype delivery orders planned as part of the initial competition.

The push reflects a major lesson from modern warfare, particularly the experience of Ukraine, where inexpensive drones have become a central battlefield capability. U.S. officials have recognized that maintaining an effective drone force requires not only advanced designs but also the ability to manufacture huge quantities quickly and replace losses without relying on fragile overseas supply chains. The Pentagon has acknowledged that the United States still trails Ukraine in production capacity, making domestic scaling one of the administration’s most urgent challenges.

Michael’s message is therefore about more than drones—it is about rebuilding the industrial capacity needed to sustain a high-volume era of warfare. By investing in domestic components, American manufacturers and rapid procurement programs, the administration is attempting to create a supply chain capable of moving from thousands of systems to hundreds of thousands when circumstances demand it. The unanswered question is whether the United States can build that capacity quickly enough to achieve true drone dominance before China and other competitors establish an even larger advantage in the global unmanned-systems race.