Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited Eau Claire on Tuesday, Oct. 20, as part of his Arsenal of Freedom tour, stopping at Riverside Machine and Engineering after an earlier stop the same day in Dayton, Ohio.
Riverside is a small subcontractor that builds parts used in radars and other equipment for BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, including components for the F-35. Hegseth toured the plant alongside Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler and addressed the workforce.
Hegseth argued that tens of thousands of small businesses form the core of the defense industrial base, saying a supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and that a missing critical subcomponent can keep an F-35 on the ground or a radar offline.
The tour promoted larger, longer and more predictable Pentagon contracts, which Hegseth said would support high-paying manufacturing jobs as companies invest in their workers and expand capacity. He said the administration is asking for a $1.5 trillion defense investment.
Speaking with reporters in Eau Claire, Hegseth also said the U.S. posture toward Ukraine had not changed and that the Pentagon had not directed any slowdown of Starlink service for Ukraine.
