Bangladesh, April 8 -- In a bold show of militarization and fiscal prioritization, President Donald Trump has unveiled what he hails as a “record-breaking” $1 trillion defense budget during a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 7. The announcement marks a sharp escalation in military expenditure, even as Trumps administration pursues sweeping federal budget cuts in nearly every other domain.

“We are very cost-conscious, but the military is something that we have to build and we have to be strong because you have a lot of bad forces out there now,” Trump told reporters. “Nobodys seen anything like it.”

Trumps statement underscores a recurring theme in his second-...