White House touts Trump's first 50 days as commander-in-chief

The White House released a list of several national security accomplishments from President Trump's first 50 days in office, highlighting his review of a strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; a defense budget proposal that has drawn opposition from fellow Republicans; and the president's own efforts to lower the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which experts say was already set to come down.

Trump received the plan to defeat ISIS last month from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Few details have been made public, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford has described it as a "rough framework."

The Trump administration, however, has scheduled a March 22-23 Washington gathering of representatives from more than 60 nations and international organizations to discuss a global strategy for defeating ISIS. The meeting will be led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Budget

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has directed the Pentagon to prepare a $573 billion fiscal year 2018 budget proposal -- a spending target that would amount to a $17 billion increase, or 3 percent hike, compared to the Obama administration's plan and would exceed current statutory spending allowed for the Defense Department by $51 billion. The increase would be paid for by cuts to domestic agencies and would lift total defense spending to $603 billion.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX), who wants a $640 billion total base topline for defense, criticized the budget proposal for being too small.

"The administration will have to make clear which problems facing our military they are choosing not to fix," the Texas lawmaker said in a statement. "While we cannot repair all of the damage done by those cuts in a single year, we can and should do more than this level of funding will allow."

Thornberry has also voiced concern that Mattis remains the sole Trump appointee at the Pentagon, which he fears could lead to managerial chaos.

Experts predict the budget will be dead-on-arrival in Congress because how steeply it cuts domestic agencies to pay for the defense boost.

"It's an ideologically radical budget that cannot pass the U.S. Senate," Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute, said last month.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) has argued that Trump's budget would be too small to live up to the president's promise to “rebuild the military.”

"With a world on fire, America cannot secure peace through strength with just 3 percent more than President Obama's budget. We can and must do better," he said last month.

F-35 negotiations

Though Trump met personally with prime contractor Lockheed Martin's CEO Marillyn Hewson to discuss opportunities for further reducing the cost of the F-35, public statements made by F-35 program officials and past reporting from Inside Defense indicate the cost-cutting measures the administration has attributed to the president's involvement were actually already in the works and part of a larger "Blueprint for Affordability" plan to reduce the F-35A's unit cost to $85 million by 2019.

The White House also praised Trump's immigration policy efforts which implemented "new protections against foreign terrorists entering our country."

Further, the White House noted that "under President Trump's leadership, the Department of the Treasury sanctioned 25 entities and individuals involved in Iran's ballistic missile program."