Our defense industrial base is under strain—munitions stockpiles are low, supply chains are brittle, and outdated regulations are slowing down private investment. To stay ahead of emerging threats, we must rebuild American manufacturing and empower the private sector to help secure our future.
We need capital to flow into eight national security drivers: AI and quantum, biotechnology, critical minerals, cybersecurity, space, energy, agricultural tech, and semiconductors. America’s investors are eager to step up—for example:
- The Stargate project is aiming to raise $500 billion of private capital for AI infrastructure.
- Andreessen Horowitz launched an “American Dynamism” fund to invest in defense companies.
- Nvidia and Apple have pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars rebuild to U.S. manufacturing.
- Founders Fund and Sands Capital led a funding round that raised $1.5 billion for Anduril Industries.
- JP Morgan’s up-to-$1.5-trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative aims to reshore manufacturing at scale.
- And Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale secured conditional regulatory approval to launch America’s first defense-technology bank.
But more must be done to clear the way for private capital. Here’s a problem most Americans aren’t aware of: Federal Acquisition Regulations often classify private investors as contractors, entangling them in the regulatory web intended for weapons vendors. This subjects them to compliance obligations that kill investment before it starts.
That’s absurd.
And it’s why I’m leading a bipartisan fix in the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act: My amendment would establish a program within the Defense Department to attract private credit to key priorities to reinforce the defense industrial base (including munitions, shipbuilding, aircraft manufacturing, and land systems) by making clear that financing partners participating in this program are not considered contractors. This allows them to avoid the FAR entanglement, sidestep red tape, and deploy capital quickly so our weapons manufactures have the financing they need to build up sufficient inventory—allowing them to manufacture and sell munitions much, much faster.
The U.S. DIB has no other option. When you combine declining domestic manufacturing capabilities, with depletion of U.S. weapon stockpiles for foreign military sales, with repetitive continuing resolutions from Congress, we end up falling behind. The U.S. taxpayer shouldn’t be on the hook for this conglomerate of mismanagement, especially when there are financiers willing to step up and common-sense reforms we can make at the Pentagon.
There’s one more thing that government could do to help investors advance national security: give them a reliable metric to identify companies that truly advance American national security.
The Securities and Exchange Commission should create a National Competitiveness Investment rating that evaluates companies on:
- The share of manufacturing done in the United States.
- Use of allied vs. adversarial supply chains.
- American workforce investment.
- Domestic R&D production.
- Leadership in critical technologies.
This tool would empower portfolio managers, pension funds, and institutional investors to prioritize America’s strategic strength—without mandates, without subsidies, and without bureaucracy.
During the Cold War, joint public-private investment produced technologies that built the modern world: GPS, satellite communications, the internet, lithium-ion batteries, and more. Government provided early risk capital—and later, standards and regulation—but it was private industry that scaled and dominated global markets. We must harness this dynamic for a new generation.
Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, serves on the House Financial Services Committee, and is the Vice Chair leading the 2026 Defense Production Act.
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