U.S. officials have informed some European counterparts that some previously contracted weapons deliveries are likely to be delayed ‌as the Iran war continues to draw on weapons stocks, five sources familiar with the matter said. The delays underline the degree to which the war against Iran ... has begun to stretch U.S. supplies of some critical weaponry and ammunition. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity ​as the communications were not public, said several European countries will be affected, including in the Baltic region and in ​Scandinavia. Some of the weapons in question were purchased by European countries under the Foreign Military Sales program, or ⁠FMS, but have not yet been delivered, the sources added. Those deliveries will likely be delayed, U.S. officials told European officials in bilateral ​messages in recent days, the sources said. On Friday, the defence ministries of Estonia and Lithuania told Reuters the U.S. has informed their countries of possible ​delays in the delivery of U.S. military equipment because of the Iran war.

The White House and the State Department referred queries to the Pentagon. "America’s military is the most powerful in the world, and we will ensure that U.S. forces and those of our allies and partners have what they need to fight and ​win," a Pentagon spokesperson said. "For operational security reasons, we will not comment on any specific allied or partner requirements or ongoing efforts to ​support them." European officials complain the delays are putting them in a difficult position. Under the FMS program, foreign countries purchase U.S.-made weapons with the logistical assistance and ‌consent of ⁠the U.S. government. Washington has pushed European NATO partners to purchase more U.S.-made materiel under President Donald Trump, including through the FMS program, as part of a bid to shift the responsibility for Europe's conventional defense away from the U.S. and onto European partners. But such weapons deliveries are often delayed, causing frustration in European capitals, where some officials are increasingly looking at weapons systems made within Europe.

U.S. officials say the weapons ​are needed for the war in ​the Middle East, and they ⁠fault European nations for not helping the U.S. and Israel open the Strait of Hormuz. Even before the Iran war, the U.S. had already drawn down billions of dollars' worth of weapons stockpiles, including artillery systems, ​ammunition and anti-tank missiles since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Israel began military operations in Gaza ​in late 2023. Since ⁠the start of the Iran campaign, Tehran has fired hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Gulf countries. Most have been intercepted, including with the PAC-3 Patriot missile interceptors that, for example, Ukraine relies on to defend its energy and military infrastructure from ballistic missiles. The sources spoke on the ⁠condition that ​the names of some of the countries affected be withheld. Some share a border ​with Russia and, as such, the cadence of weapons deliveries can be considered sensitive defense information. The delayed weaponry includes various kinds of ammunition, including munitions that can be used ​for both offensive and defensive purposes, the sources said.

The comments come days after General Electric Aerospace’s statement that the company would need more money to wrap up qualification testing for the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) in the next 12-18 months. “I’ll say this in general about programs out there, the Army wants to burden share with the developers, right? It shouldn’t be the Army always putting all the upfront money,” Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, program acquisition executive for Maneuver Air, told reporters Thursday following a question about General Electric’s comments. He added that Army leadership has been “pretty intent” on making sure companies are coming to the table with funding to “share the cost with us” for testing and development. “We don’t want to do all the development, we want to do the procurement. We want to buy it for the long term, so that that’s where we’re going back to the manufacturers and having negotiations about, how do we best position the development so that it’s not all on the government. But also… we understand that [the manufacturers] have to see that there is a production line so that they can make a profit in the future,” said Gill, who is dual-hatted as the commanding general of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence.

ITEP has faced several delays over the years as the Army has adjusted its priorities for its aviation fleet. The service reportedly came close to cancelling the program in line with the Army Transformation Initiative. Further, funding for the program was zeroed out in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 budget request. This happened in the FY26 budget request as well, but lawmakers ultimately pushed back, providing the service with $175 million in FY26 funding and $63 million in reconciliation money. With the previously allocated funding, the Army and General Electric have been able to make significant progress in completing qualification testing, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, deputy PAE of Maneuver Air, told Breaking Defense last month. Tom Champion, executive program director for T901 at General Electric, told reporters earlier this week that the company has delivered six flight test engines to the Army at this point and will continue to deliver more. He added that the company has invested around $500 million in the testing and development of the engine, and in the last two years, the company has invested over $600 million in its factory sites related to its defense engine business. When Breaking Defense inquired about Gill’s comments, a spokesperson from General Electric pointed to Champion’s previous comments on investment figures, but declined to comment on any plans for future investments.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week instructed department leaders to terminate most of the department’s collective-bargaining agreements, more than a year after President Trump signed an executive order banning federal employee unions from many agencies on national-security grounds. In an April 9 memo obtained by Government Executive, Hegseth gave his deputies 24 hours to take action to cancel most union contracts. “I hereby direct the termination of all collective bargaining agreements to which the department is a party, not subject to a court order enjoining implementation to which the department is a party, not subject to a court order enjoining implementation of Executive Order 14251, ‘Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs,’ within 24 hours of the date of this memorandum, except as applied to the population covered by the [April 2025] secretary of defense certification . . . and the local employing offices of any agency police officers, security guards or firefighters, pursuant to EO 14251,” the secretary wrote last week. “This action is required to align agency operations with national security requirements as outlined in EO 14251.”

A year ago, Hegseth exempted bargaining units of Federal Wage System workers at four installations: the Letterkenny Munition Center in Pennsylvania, the Air Force Test Center in California, the Air Force Sustainment Center in Oklahoma, and the Fleet Readiness Center Southeast in Florida. Spared from the new memo are the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and the Federal Education Association, which last fall secured preliminary injunctions blocking implementation of the executive order. The order cites a seldom-used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act as authority to strip two-thirds of the federal workforce of their collective-bargaining rights on national-security grounds. Not so for AFGE, the nation’s largest federal-employee union. In a statement Wednesday, National President Everett Kelley decried Hegseth’s decision as “cowardly.” “For 50 years, these employees have exercised their union rights; under several administrations, during a global pandemic and throughout peacetime and wartime, including our most recent conflict with Iran,” he said. “To rip up the union contracts of civilian employees after touting a successful ceasefire in the Middle East is not only a slap in the face to the employees who supported those efforts, but again proves that this action has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with silencing workers’ voices.”

The Trump administration is proposing a major overhaul of how the federal government decides which workers to lay off when eliminating jobs. For veterans, the new rule would prioritize performance reviews over both veteran status and years of service when agencies determine which workers to cut. The rule, according to one advocate for disabled veterans, could reduce protections for military veterans who hold federal jobs. ”In practice, the rule authorizes the displacement of a preference-eligible veteran with substantially greater tenure and length of service by a non-veteran based on minimal rating differentials, an outcome fundamentally at odds with the statutory scheme Congress enacted,” Scott Hope, national service director for Disabled American Veterans, wrote in a public comment submitted to the federal register on the rule Monday. Reducing the size of the federal workforce through layoffs and changes in hiring has been a central goal of the Trump administration, a goal that veteran advocates have worried would land hard on the shoulders of vets. More than 621,700 veterans were employed at federal agencies in 2024, making up about 27% of the workforce, according to the Office of Personnel and Management, or OPM. More than half are disabled veterans. In the March 5 proposed rule, published in the Federal Register, the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, which oversees nearly every civilian job in the federal government, said it planned to change the ranking system used during major layoffs. The new rule would not impact the initial hiring process for federal jobs.

Under current rules, when federal agencies cut large numbers of jobs, they retain employees based on several factors in the following order of importance: the administrative category of the job (known as the tenure group); veterans preference group (if an employee falls under one); total time an employee has worked in federal service (including time in the military); and then performance reviews. The proposed rule would reorder the weight of those criteria and make performance reviews “a more significant factor.” Both veteran status and length of service — which benefits many veterans due to military time — would be deprioritized. OPM officials argued in the notice that since current rules prioritize tenure over merit, “high-performing employees may be separated while lower-performing, but more senior employees, may be retained in a RIF.”

Veterans groups reviewing changes

Federal hiring preferences for veterans date back to 1865, for wounded veterans coming home after the Civil War. The 1944 Veterans Preference Act gave veterans an advantage in the federal hiring process and safeguards against reductions in force. There are some exceptions, however. It does not apply to federal job promotions, transfers, reassignments and reinstatements, nor does it apply to certain senior or executive branch positions. Officials with Disabled American Veterans, DAV, and Veterans of Foreign Wars, VFW, said they are concerned that the rule could remove “long-standing” veterans’ preference rules. VFW Executive Director Ryan Gallucci told Task & Purpose they are still reviewing the proposed rule and intend to comment and work with OPM “to ensure veterans continue to receive all the employment protections to which they are entitled to.” Officials with the American Legion said in a statement that they are “carefully reviewing” the proposed rule, adding that veterans bring “highly sought after skills” to the federal workforce. An OPM official told Task & Purpose that “the framing that the rule gives less weight to veterans preference is not true,” and that the proposed rule puts performance as a primary factor, “but veterans preference is a strong secondary factor.” The proposed rule comes after a year of mass federal layoffs and buyouts under the Trump administration. More than 348,200 workers quit, retired, were laid off, or otherwise left federal employment in 2025, a jump of more than 80% from 2024, according to Pew Research analysis. As the layoffs grew, OPM stopped providing information on gender, race, ethnicity or disability status of federal workers, although the office had those stats when Pew did its analysis in January 2025. Public comments on the Federal Register close on May 5.