According to a report by The Atlantic, citing a Republican official in Congress, one of the primary holds-ups in the Trump Administration’s decision to license the production of air defense launchers and missiles to Ukraine, particularly the PATRIOT Surface-to-Air Missile System, has been the system’s designers Raytheon and Lockheed. The official states that the two defense contractors “will officially frame their concerns around IP theft and tech transfer,” but “their real worry is that the Ukrainians will find a way to improve the PATRIOT and then produce them at scale faster and for much less money than what the existing production lines in the U.S. could do,” threatening manufacturers in the United States.