Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth stated the Pentagon is working to remain forward in trendy warfare amid drone and synthetic intelligence developments on the battlefield.
Hegseth, a former “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host, sat down with “The Will Cain Show” Monday on the Pentagon, the place he laid out the Trump administration’s posture towards China amid an arms race with the communist nation and adversaries like Russia and Iran.
“We concede nothing to the communist Chinese. We’re creating dilemmas for them at every level,” he stated.
Flags of the U.S. and China sit in a room the place U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with China’s Minister of Public Safety Wang Xiaohong on the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, April 26, 2024, in Beijing, China. (Mark Schiefelbein/Pool by way of REUTERS/File photograph)
The Pentagon boss added that the White Home is invested within the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine however is shifting its consideration to countering China within the Indo-Pacific, a transfer mirrored in Hegseth’s first abroad journey to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and Japan.
China has made important developments in drone manufacturing, with experiences that the nation is getting ready to launch a brand new drone-carrying mothership able to releasing as much as 100 smaller drones at a time.
Chinese language know-how firm DJI touts itself because the world’s main producer of client and business drones and has a hefty presence in U.S. and Asian markets.
Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow on the non-partisan Basis for Protection of Democracies, informed Fox Information Digital that the Shenzhen-based firm dominates the worldwide drone market, controlling greater than 70% of the worldwide market share.
“That’s alarming, because DJI drones are essentially data collectors for Beijing — giving China potential access to sensitive infrastructure imagery, flight patterns, and more. It’s not just a market-share problem — it’s a national security threat,” he stated.
CHINA LAUNCHES LARGE MILITARY DRILLS AROUND TAIWAN TO ISSUE ‘SEVERE WARNING’
Hegseth informed Fox Information host Will Cain that the Pentagon understands the motives and capabilities of the Chinese language authorities and needs to construct up a U.S. army that’s able to deterring any future battle between the 2 nations.
DJI drones on show. ((Costfoto/NurPhoto by way of Getty Pictures) | (CFOTO/Future Publishing by way of Getty Pictures))
“We don’t want that conflict. You showed how big they are,” he stated, referring to a graphic that compares and contrasts the US’ lively personnel, warships and nuclear weapons to China’s.
“President Trump has a great relationship with Xi Jinping — we think that’s a good thing. And we stared them down on trade — we think that’s a good thing. Rebalancing that dynamic is important. We’re the ones in the background trying to say we would always prefer to resolve this peacefully. But we’re gonna do that by being as strong as possible to meet their threat at every turn.”
The USA Marine Corps established an assault drone crew earlier this 12 months to reply to the fast growth of armed first-person view (FPV) drone know-how and techniques, providing a glimpse into the evolving panorama of recent warfare and the way future battles may very well be fought.
A Marine pilots a first-person view drone throughout an indication vary at WTBn on Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, March 7, 2025. ((DVIDS / U.S. Marine Corps photograph by Cpl. Joshua Barker))
The Marine Corps Assault Drone Crew might be primarily based on the Weapons Coaching Battalion, Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The FPV drones used will supply squad-level lethality at a spread of as much as 20 kilometers, almost 12.5 miles, for below $5,000, in comparison with dearer weapons techniques with much less functionality, based on a press launch from the service.
