On this week’s Defense & Aerospace Report Business Roundtable, sponsored by Bell, Dr. “Rocket” Ron Epstein of Bank of America Securities, Sash Tusa of the independent equity research firm Agency Partners and Richard Aboulafia of the AeroDynamic advisory consultancy join host Vago Muradian to discuss an rocky week on Wall Street; the Trump administration’s $12 billion “Project Vault” effort to create a strategic minerals stockpile to reduce dependence on China; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s list of poorly performing defense contractors; the administration charters Erebor Bank with $635 million in capital to support defense and tech startups; RTX agrees to the Pentagon’s seven-year deal to invest its own money to boost increase Tomahawk cruise missile output from 60 per year today to 1,000 a year, triple the SM-6 air defense and strike missile production to 500 weapons, and AMRAAM air-to-air missile rates from 1200 to 1900 annually; Russia’s efforts to shadow European satellites; takeaways from the Singapore airshow including Airbus and the Singapore Air Force receive the first automatic air-to-air refueling certification for the A330 Multirole Tanker Transport aircraft, Singapore to buy four P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, Indonesia buys M346 trainers but it’s fighter modernization is uncertain, and Uzbekistan orders Embraer’s KC-390; Boeing consolidates 787 jetliner work in South Carolina, moving 300 jobs from Washington the the palmetto state; and Democratic lawmakers want an investigation into SpaceX’s links with China.
