President Donald Trump’s megabill that passed and was signed into law last week will boost spending on Department of Defense drones, an area where national production has lagged significantly behind China and Ukraine.

While battling Russia in its ongoing war, Ukraine has set up systems to 3D print drones in basements where engineers and troops work together on designs, said Doug Beck, director of the Defense Innovation Unit. Across the country, Ukraine produces about 4,000 to 5,000 drones a day, he said, during a congressional hearing in May.

China dominates the global market, making 70% of the world’s drones. The U.S. was set to buy 4,000 drones this year, according to Beck’s written testimony.

“We have got a long way to go to get to the level of meeting the threat and the level of pacing change that’s necessary,” Beck told lawmakers.

Maj. Gen. David Stewart, director of the Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, told lawmakers the small unmanned aerial systems are more dangerous than improvised explosive devices U.S. troops faced in the war on terrorism because they can actively target troops from the air.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” set aside billions to increase production of aerial and maritime drones, including $1 billion for the industrial base to make one-way attack drones and $1.4 billion for the industrial base for small unmanned aerial systems.

It also sets aside more than $5.5 billion for maritime drones, including $250 million for wave-powered unmanned underwater vehicles, while counter-drone systems will also see about $1.3 billion. The investments are part of about $150 billion set aside for defense spending in the bill. Trump has proposed spending about $1 trillion on defense in the next year.

Fort Carson has been preparing soldiers to detect and survive a drone attack and soldiers working on that training foresee a time when drones are integrated into every squadron, The Gazette reported previously. Those working on drone training previously worked on the 11-foot shadow drones that the Army has since stopped using because they were not suited to the modern battlefield.

The investments are significant, according to Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. They are also needed across categories — short range and long range, maritime and over land, offensive and defensive, he said. The highest priority for drones is medium-range systems to counter China, O’Hanlon said.

But as one-time investments, it’s tough to judge the difference they will make.

“DoD rarely remakes the world or rebuilds its weaponry within just one year,” O’Hanlon said in an email.

Beck told lawmakers one of the main changes needs to be a shift from programs of record to portfolios of record to allow for more flexibility because technology is evolving so fast.

“It makes no sense to identify exactly what you are going to buy in two years, when the thing doesn’t exist yet,” he said.

America’s capability to develop hardware and software within emerging companies also needs to be linked to advanced manufacturing to help produce drones at scale, Beck said.

While the DOD works on its long-term drone strategy, the Army has been 3D printing drones at the Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems University at Fort Sill in Oklahoma for training. The institution spent $360,000 to make the drones instead of the estimated $4 million it could have spent to buy them, according to an Army news release.