Donald Trump unaware of US weapons shortage, prompting Camp David clash with Hegseth - reprot

The White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the US had “far more munitions than anyone in the world" and "far more than we need," Reuters reported.

US President Donald Trump did not know about the extreme munitions shortage that is threatening to limit US military options in Iran, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing a source.

According to the source, Trump confronted US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Camp David on Friday, saying that he thought the munitions issue "had been fixed," and that he felt he had been misled, the report added.

This missile shortage may have been part of the reason that Trump decided not to launch what he described as "the biggest attack since World War II," on Iran over the weekend, the report cited the source as saying.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected the report as false in a post to X/Twitter on Wednesday evening.

"This literally never happened," she wrote.

"This B.S. story was shopped to many outlets by someone clearly out to disparage the Secretary, for whatever reason. Unfortunately for them, the President loves the Secretary and thinks he’s doing a tremendous job."

The US Army has used up "virtually all" of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to a Reuters report on Tuesday.

These long-range munitions allow the military to carry out accurate strikes from a safe distance, playing a crucial role in the US-Iran conflict.

Ukraine feels interceptor shortage after US rejected license

The Washington Post found that in the first month of the conflict with Iran, the US had fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles and over 1,000 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAD) missiles, and used at least 1,300 tactical ballistic missiles.

When asked for comment on the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the US had “far more munitions than anyone in the world" and "far more than we need," Reuters reported.

"Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels," Trump said.

The munitions shortage has an impact beyond the US-Iran conflict. The Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) stockpile, a short-range missile also in demand by Ukraine, is drained to the extent that there’s basically none left, Reuters reported.

Additionally, between February and July the US had used around 65% of its Patriot interceptors, leaving the country unwilling to supply Ukraine with the much needed defense system.

At times, the interceptor shortage caused by US use of munitions during the Iran conflict has been deadly in Ukraine.

Although in early July President Trump had offered to give Ukraine the license to make Patriot interceptors, last week he denied the claim that the US had agreed to "give away" the technology.

On Wednesday, following a deadly Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukrainian President Voldymr Zelenskyy said that the shortage of interceptor missiles "encourages Russia to launch such attacks that take human lives," the BBC reported.

"Every single day," Zelenskyy said, "the lives of people here in Ukraine depend on the decisiveness of our partners in Europe and America."