Pentagon Reportedly Asks Detroit to Use More Car Factories as Arms Factories

The Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the discussions,” says the Trump Pentagon has urged leaders in the U.S. automotive industry to do more for the war effort. America’s national weapons cache has, it seems, begun to look a bit depleted from all the arms we’ve shipped abroad, and rounds we’ve squeezed off lately—particularly in Ukraine and Iran. CEOs including Mary Barra of General Motors and Jim Farley of Ford have been among the executives who have sat for talks with high-ranking defense officials about upping the production of arms in what are currently car factories, with labor from people currently employed as automotive workers. GM, it should be noted, already makes a military vehicle called the Infantry Squad Vehicle or ISV. In a speech in November of last year, Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth described the industrial effort he’d like to see, but sounded a bit more like ChatGPT than he probably intends: “We’re not just buying something. We are solving life and death problems for our war fighters. We’re not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing.” The Pentagon’s statement to the Journal said the