The second stage solid rocket motor completes a static fire test on November 21, 2024 in Elkton, Maryland. (Photo: Northrop Grumman)

President Donald Trump last week invoked a decades old law that gives the federal government emergency authorities to control domestic industries, in this case enabling the defense industrial base around munitions to collaborate in ways that might otherwise be deemed anti-competitive. The use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to launch new voluntary agreements with industry has been nine months in the making and is meant to allow the Defense Department to work with industry to sort out challenges it…