Following a series of media reports highlighting a severe shortage of U.S. military interceptor missiles, U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly ordered a hunt for those who leaked military secrets.

While publicly and strongly denying the reports, signs suggest he is also pushing to replenish stockpiles quickly. Observers interpret this as stemming from concerns that depleted inventory levels, severe enough to hinder combat operations, could weaken his negotiating leverage with Iran.

On the 7th local time, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that President Trump ordered a "new investigation" into ammunition stockpiles.

Administration officials stated that this is an effort to verify whether the stockpile figures he was briefed on are accurate, while also pushing back against "revelations that harm" military operations.

This directly contradicts his remarks from the previous day, when he dismissed reports of ammunition shortages as "completely unfounded rumors" and claimed to possess "massive amounts of ammunition."

President Trump is reportedly furious over the recent series of reports, with senior administration officials telling the WSJ that the negative coverage regarding ammunition inventory drove him "crazy."

On social media platform Truth Social, President Trump issued a warning, writing, "The leakers who spilled treasonous remarks are currently being tracked down. They will face long prison terms."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also stated the previous day, "Anyone entrusted with access to classified military information who leaks it to the press has betrayed that trust, violated federal law, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

President Trump launched a massive hunt for leakers last June after the media reported initial assessments by military intelligence stating that the operational impact of airstrikes on underground Iranian nuclear facilities "fell short of expectations."

Circumstances that have emerged so far regarding U.S. military ammunition inventory are far from President Trump's bold assertions.

Media reports and think tank analyses have revealed that ammunition stockpiles for major interceptor missiles, such as the Patriot (PAC-3) and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), stand at best at 40 to 50 percent, and at worst at just 20 percent.

With ammunition shortages worsening, internal military testimony has also surfaced indicating that if ballistic missiles fired by Iran head toward "unpopulated areas," they are sometimes left unengaged entirely.

President Trump's emphasis that ammunition is "being mass-produced and shipped to the U.S." and that "defense contractors are building more production facilities and plants than at any time in our history" can also be interpreted as signaling a shortage in inventory.

President Trump has reportedly focused entirely on boosting ammunition production since a Cabinet meeting at Camp David on the 31st of last month, where he was reported to have clashed with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the ammunition shortage issue.

The WSJ reported, citing a source, that following that meeting, President Trump "called Stephen Feinberg, the deputy defense secretary who has led a yearlong effort to ramp up ammunition production, to discuss ammunition inventory levels."

Prompted by President Trump's urging, Deputy Secretary Feinberg convened an emergency meeting to discuss ways to dramatically increase ammunition output, the source added.

It is suspected that this discussion led to the Defense Department's announcement earlier this month that it had signed "two foundational agreements with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to expand production capacity for interceptor missile components," which aims to triple and quadruple production of Patriots and THaADs, respectively.

However, experts point out that unless actual budgets for ammunition production are secured, rapid manufacturing as anticipated by the Trump administration will remain practically difficult.

The Trump administration has requested a defense budget of 1.5 trillion dollars, an unprecedented scale.

Among this, 350 billion dollars would require bypassing Democratic opposition in the Senate—which necessitates a 60-vote threshold—by utilizing the budget reconciliation process.

This includes 52.9 billion dollars allocated for ammunition.

Secretary Hegseth, Deputy Secretary Feinberg, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine are reportedly holding private contacts with Republican lawmakers, urging them to swiftly pass at least an emergency package containing the ammunition budget.

The Washington Post reported that defense contractors maintain that foundational agreements signed with the Pentagon are merely agreements, and that "they will not bend metal until there are contracts and congressional appropriations."

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)