Leo Hohmann – Leo’s Newsletter April 22, 2026

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President Donald Trump is not only losing the war in Iran, he’s dangerously depleting U.S. stockpiles of weapons and munitions, and this could signal to China that now is the time to take Taiwan because there’s nothing Washington could do about it.

According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the U.S. has after seven weeks already expended approximately half of its inventory for several key missiles.

According to the CSIS report:

Concern about the status of U.S. munitions inventories has intensified as reports emerge about high expenditures of Tomahawks, Patriots, and other missiles in the Iran war. As Operation Epic Fury remains paused in a shaky ceasefire, there is an opportunity to assess whether the U.S. military nears the point of going “Winchester”—or running out of ammunition.

“Analysis of seven key munitions shows that the United States has enough missiles to continue fighting this war under any plausible scenario. The risk—which will persist for many years—lies in future wars.”

Rebuilding those supplies could take years, even if production is increased and the war with Iran winds down. But there are no signs that President Donald Trump plans to wind down his war-making escapades. He has not even finished up the war he started in Iran and he’s already talking about sending the military into Cuba. He’s talked in the past about invading Greenland and Mexico.

The assessment from CSIS flies in the face of Trump’s recent claim that the U.S. was not running short of any weaponry. In the first week of the Iran war, on March 3, Trump said that U.S. supplies of weapons are “virtually unlimited” and that wars can be fought “forever.”

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

“The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better — As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons.”

“Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!). At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be. Much additional high grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries.”

Like most of Trump’s public statements, this was completely untethered from the truth, giving Americans a false illustration of the strength of their country’s military.

China is no doubt closely monitoring the situation.

CSIS concluded in its report that diminished munitions stockpiles have created a near-term risk, adding that: “A war against a capable peer competitor like China will consume munitions at greater rates than in this war. Prewar inventories were already insufficient; the levels today will constrain U.S. operations should a future conflict arise.”

Rebuilding these missile stockpiles will take up to four years.

In the 39 days of the air and missile campaign before the ceasefire, U.S. forces heavily used the seven munitions. For four of them, the United States may have expended more than half of the prewar inventory. Rebuilding to prewar levels for the seven munitions will take from one to four years as missiles in the pipeline are delivered. These missiles will also be critical for a potential Western Pacific conflict. Even before the Iran war, stockpiles were deemed insufficient for a peer competitor fight. That shortfall is now even more acute, and building stockpiles to levels adequate for a war with China will take additional time.

Diminished inventories will also affect the U.S. supply of Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defenses (THAADs), and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) to Ukraine and other allies and partners that use them. The United States will compete with those countries that also want to replenish and expand inventories.

All of this adds up to a boon for the U.S. military-industrial complex, which will have years of extremely lucrative deals to replenish weapons burned up in a needless, fruitless and unwinnable war in Iran.

This is also why Trump recently requested U.S. auto manufacturers to prepare to convert their manufacturing facilities over to factories dedicated to making weapons of war.

According to the New York Post:

The Trump administration has quietly approached US industrial giants including Ford and General Motors about potentially boosting weapons production, according to a report.

Senior Pentagon officials have held talks with Ford CEO Jim Farley and GM boss Mary Barra about whether the automakers could help the military replenish its weapons stockpiles, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The discussions are part of a broader push by the administration to put military manufacturing on what War Secretary Pete Hegseth has described as a “wartime footing,” according to the report.

This also explains why Trump has requested a 50 percent increase in the U.S. defense budget, taking it from an already bloated $1 trillion (largest by far in the world), to a staggering $1.5 trillion.

This is money the U.S. Treasury doesn’t have and will be created out of thin air by cranking up the printing presses, further monetizing the staggering $40 trillion-and-growing U.S. national debt. Expect inflation to explode over the final three years of Trump’s watch. If you consider his first term, and thus far in his second, Trump has already added more to the national debt than the vast majority of all the other presidents combined.

I have yet to hear one legitimate reason for launching this ultra-expensive war against Iran. This is a country that posed zero threat to American national security, and all of the Israeli- and neocon-funded think tanks that advocated for this war were doing so dishonestly based on trumped-up data meant to scare Americans into supporting another forever war in the Middle East. It’s a war we cannot afford, cannot win, and don’t intend to win, because it was launched for reasons that I’ve already laid out in previous articles that have nothing to do with nuclear weapons or freeing an oppressed people.

It’s all about oil, trade routes, the expansion of Israel’s borders, and setting up an all powerful technocratic beast system based on the Gaza model. Total control over all human activity, digitizing every human soul, limiting the freedom of movement, squelching freedom of speech, and submitting to government by algorithm.

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