Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced a sweeping new directive to ramp up the U.S. military’s arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles.

“We know why we were put here,” Hegseth said in a video posted on his X account. “We were brought here to rebuild the military, match capabilities to the threats of today. So, while our adversaries have produced millions of cheap drones before us, we were mired in bureaucratic red tape.

“Not anymore. In June, President [Donald] Trump issued an executive order unleashing American drone dominance to bolster our drone industry and arm our warfighters because that’s what we’re all about. So today, I’m rescinding restrictive policies that stifle production, and this will unleash American manufacturing and the ingenuity of our warfighters.”

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