‘Significant impact’: Senators warn White House over Reciprocal Defense Procurements

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan duo of senators is ringing alarm bells about a special trade agreement process that allows the Pentagon to negotiate directly with foreign counterparts, saying the deals could be detrimental to the US defense industry.

In a letter sent to the White House today, Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Jim Banks, R-Ind., urged Trump’s Defense Department to review and update the Reciprocal Defense Procurement (RDP) agreements process, which essentially allows the Pentagon and foreign governments to agree to bypass “buy national” rules for defense contracts.

“A robust defense industrial base is essential for national security and economic resilience, as it underpins the development, maintenance, and deployment of U.S. military assets,” wrote Baldwin, a defense appropriations subcommittee member, and Banks, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“While RDPs can have positive impacts in facilitating integration with our partners and allies and enable positive exchanges, the significant impact of RDP agreements on our domestic industrial base necessitates rigorous scrutiny in their review, approval, and renewal,” the senators wrote. “With the growing number of RDP agreements, we expect that your Agency Secretaries will thoroughly review and refine the process for entering into and renewing these agreements, ensuring they bolster U.S. industry while fortifying our defense partnerships.”

The Pentagon has brokered 28 RDP agreements as well as six similar arrangements with allied and partner nations since Congress first authorized the process in 1988, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The US has also previously indicated interest in negotiating RDP deals with Brazil and South Korea, and India. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Baldwin and Banks’s concerns about protecting US industry could find sympathetic ears in the halls of the West Wing. Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that foreign nations have taken advantage of US policies and put American manufacturers at a disadvantage, and he has made retaliatory tariffs a key element of his economic policy.

A GAO report from December 2024, which analyzed RDP agreement activity since 2018, found instances where the Pentagon “skipped critical due diligence steps,” including failing to seek input from industry on agreements or not obtaining analysis from the Commerce Department, a summary of the report states.

The senators’ letter also cites those findings and others from GAO’s report, including instances where the Pentagon was waiving “Buy America” rules even for countries with expired RDP agreements.

The GAO report “shows that there needs to be a more robust review process for establishing and renewing RDP agreements, and your America First Trade Policy report similarly identified these agreements as a point of concern,” Baldwin and Banks wrote.

Because current regulations created a blanket waiver of all Buy American requirements of defense items for foreign suppliers from a country with a RDP agreement, the US government should ensure that such agreements don’t weaken the US industrial base before finalizing or renewing future deals, the senators wrote.

The Commerce Department and International Trade Commission should also review RDP agreements, as well as provide a way for companies to provide feedback on whether a deal is disadvantageous, Baldwin and Banks said.

“We must ensure that any RDP agreements undergo rigorous scrutiny with transparent decision-making processes and input from industry stakeholders,” they wrote. “The decision to enter or renew such agreements should be guided by strategic imperatives, not expediency. Our domestic industrial base should be able to take priority when that goal clashes with other priorities.”