WASHINGTON — The U.S. military, scrambling to rebuild depleted stocks of high-tech weaponry, on Monday said it had awarded RTX unit Raytheon a $22.9 billion contract to dramatically boost the output of Tomahawk missiles.
The U.S. has supplied large amounts of arms to allies while also using munitions in the Iran conflict, raising concerns about inventories of air defense and precision-guided weapons.
"We called on industry to rapidly scale up munitions output, and RTX is delivering," Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said in an X post. "This landmark Tomahawk contract ensures our warfighters continue to have the lethal firepower they need."
This March 2026 file photo shows the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner firing a Tomahawk land attack missile in support of an Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran.
In a separate statement, Raytheon said the contract would run for seven years and would allow annual Tomahawk production to increase to more than 1,000 missiles. The company, which has a complex located near Tucson International Airport, currently makes just 60 Tomahawks a year.
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"Tomahawk is the Navy's most important strike weapon, able to target hostile forces hundreds of miles away without ever risking the lives of our sailors," Raytheon President Phil Jasper said Monday in a prepared statement from the company. "We are making significant investments in our workforce, technology, supply chain and facilities to dramatically boost production capacity and meet surging demand."
The sea-launched Tomahawk, a mainstay of the Navy's surface fleet, provides long-range precision strike capability against land targets from ships and submarines.
The formal announcement firms up a framework agreement that the U.S. military and Raytheon signed in February.
The administration of President Donald Trump is brokering multi-year deals with the biggest U.S. defense contractors, giving the companies confidence to invest billions of dollars in new facilities and equipment.
Earlier this month, the military signed deals to ramp up production of Patriot and THAAD interceptor missile parts.
