Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

The federal government is embarking on what Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has called “the most important infrastructure project that we’ve had in this country for decades.” It is attempting to modernize and upgrade the nation’s entire air traffic control system within a timeline of roughly three- and-a-half to four years.

Multiple aviation experts, ranging from former pilots and controllers to professors and an aviation lawyer, say the changes are needed and long overdue.

The entire project is projected to cost at least $32.5 billion, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the initial $12.5 billion downpayment funded by President Donald Trump’s spending bill in July 2025. Duffy has asked Congress for an additional $20 billion to complete the project by the end of the president’s term.

This is what the FAA has said it plans to do in this multi-year modernization project, which portions of the project experts say are most critical, some of the obstacles the federal government might face, and background on the company chosen to lead the endeavor.

What to Expect

The FAA’s plan to “deliver Americans a state-of-the-art air traffic control system” will involve replacing telecommunication lines, radar systems, software, hardware, and other core U.S. aviation infrastructure.

The agency said it will replace copper lines with fiber optics—a project that Duffy recently said is already more than 30 percent complete—and will swap outdated communication hardware with wireless and satellite technology.

These changes will be made at nearly 5,000 locations, alongside implementing more than 25,000 new radios and 462 new digital voice switches, according to an FAA fact sheet.

An air traffic controller monitors screens beside a digital Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) clock inside the control tower at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Sept. 4, 2013. Reed Saxon/File/AP Photo

The agency said more than 600 radar systems that “have gone past their life cycle” will be replaced. Some U.S. radar systems, particularly ground-based radar, date back to between the 1940s and the 1970s.

“The primary radar system—that goes back to World War II, and that’s still in use. And that’s basically detecting that there is something in the air. You can’t always tell what it is,” said Margaret Wallace, a former military air traffic controller and an assistant professor of aviation management at Florida Institute of Technology.

In the decades since World War II, the FAA has “added layers of technology … and if a lower level has an issue, then that’s going to create issues in all the other layers of technology,” Wallace told The Epoch Times.

Additionally, the FAA is increasing the number of airports that deploy the “Surface Awareness Initiative” (SAI). SAI is a ground-based monitoring system that allows air traffic controllers to see all aircraft traversing runways, taxiways, and other surface movement areas at airports.

As of March 2025, SAI was operational at 18 airports. The FAA aimed to install it at 50 airports by the end of 2025 and a total of 200 airports overall. An FAA spokesman told The Epoch Times on Jan. 6 that the system has now been installed at 52 air traffic control towers.

Modernizing air traffic control will also involve building a new consolidated air route traffic control center for the first time in six decades and replacing multiple control towers and one Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility.

TRACON facilities manage air traffic for several airports in specific regions, such as the New York City or Tampa metropolitan areas.

Air traffic controllers monitor aircraft activity at Philadelphia International Airport on Nov. 11, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Desperately Needed

U.S. airspace is in desperate need of upgrades, multiple aviation experts said.

“The basic radar technology obviously needs to be upgraded and have better detection systems. With all the GPS [global positioning system] and everything we have, I think it would be reasonable to use that as a secondary technology as well,” said Wallace, who teaches classes on air traffic control and airport management.

She described how other countries have upgraded the way their air traffic control infrastructures identify aircraft and communicate across multiple systems within their airspace, leading to improved reliability throughout.

The United States still uses analog frequency radios, similar to the AM/FM radios found in cars, which—unlike radios in airport control towers—have already been outpaced by digital devices such as smartphones that utilize new technology, Wallace said.

Some of these radios have created headaches for pilots flying into busy airspaces, according to Shawn Pruchnicki, a safety expert, former pilot, and aviation professor at Ohio State University.

“The number one problem that I think if you ask any pilot, and probably the majority of controllers, would tell you, is that we have this single channel for communications that only one person can talk at a time. I don’t know how you get around that,” Pruchnicki told The Epoch Times.

Sometimes pilots will be handed off to a new radio frequency from a previous one, and “then all of a sudden … you listen, and it’s just like this constant barrage of air traffic control clearances. It’s like this person’s not even taking a breath, and you’re just like, ‘Oh, dear God … this airspace, apparently, is out of control.’”

Even though the controllers in the tower can see and direct the planes without constant communication with pilots, Pruchnicki said there are times when a pilot needs to check in with the tower, especially if there’s an emergency, and it can “become problematic” if there are too many pilots waiting to speak on congested radio channels.

An air traffic controller stands beneath a radar screen in the control tower at Washington’s Reagan National Airport. The FAA said more than 600 radar systems that “have gone past their life cycle” will be replaced. Charles Dharapak/File/AP Photo

Making these upgrades throughout the U.S. airspace requires an entire overhaul, including rebuilding whole facilities to make way for modernized hardware and software, Wallace said.

“Because you can’t just say, ‘oh, let’s flip the switch, and we’re going to use this today,’” she said.

There’s also the need to balance the need for  change with the caution to maintain safety within a system as complex and critical as aviation, according to Shem Malmquist, who has worked in aviation for nearly 40 years, including as a commercial pilot, professor, and safety consultant.

“Whether it’s politics or whatever, you have some people that want to push forward and come up with the new ideas and constantly change things. And then you have the other, that’s the conservative side, saying, ‘No, no, wait, wait, wait; we know this other thing is working. Let’s not change too quickly,’” he told The Epoch Times.

“Those two working together creates a balance, and the same thing is true on development of safety-critical systems. You want that balance.”

Compressed Timeline

Although the upgrades are necessary, some aviation experts are concerned about the three-and-a-half to four-year timeline.

“I think it’s probably aggressive,” Greg Reigel, an aviation lawyer and private pilot, told The Epoch Times.

Reigel said the project is essentially one of the most ambitious and wide-reaching infrastructure projects in American history.

“I think it’s a good thing. I think they’re on the right track,” he said.

”I just hope that they’re doing this the right way, and that safety is first and foremost, and they’re not getting outside political or financial pressure with respect to deadlines or going live” with upgraded hardware and software, Reigel said.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 23, 2025. Duffy recently said the FAA has replaced more than 30 percent of its copper lines with fiber optics. Eric Lee/Getty Images

Wallace said it’s not a “realistic timeline” to do a “full overhaul” of U.S. air traffic control.

“We can get some facilities started, but even when we get them up and built and everything, we still have to have a test period.”

When a new facility is built to replace an old one, it takes time to transition workers from one building to another. Throwing human factors into the mix complicates it further, Wallace said.

“It’s great to have all this new technology, but how do humans adapt to it? So they work with certain systems now; there’s going to be a big training process.” she added.

Malmquist said that any changes to a system as complex as U.S. airspace are going to require careful consideration, “management of change procedure,” and documentation of all alterations to air traffic control infrastructure and why they were replaced or modified.

“When you make a change, you can go back and trace back and say, ‘Is this going to affect these other things, but then how they’re going to interact in unexpected ways?’” he added.

Peraton to Lead Upgrade Project

The federal government on Dec. 4, 2025, announced that it had chosen Peraton, a national security and technology firm that contracts with the Department of Defense, to be the “prime integrator” of the air traffic control modernization project.

As prime integrator, Peraton’s main initiative will be managing the modernization project and making sure it is delivered on time without major disruptions to U.S. airspace, the FAA said in a fact sheet the same day.

A computer screen displays real-time air traffic over North America in the control tower at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on Feb. 11, 2015. The FAA said it plans to replace outdated communications hardware with wireless and satellite systems at nearly 5,000 sites, along with more than 25,000 new radios and 462 digital voice switches. M. Spencer Green/File/AP Photo

Several aviation experts told The Epoch Times that they had not heard of Peraton before seeing the FAA’s announcement. The company was spun out of another defense contractor, the former Harris Corporation. Veritas Capital bought Harris Corporation’s government IT services division in 2017 and renamed it Peraton.

In a September 2025 statement, Peraton said it “brings to the table a holistic approach, unhindered by a failed history of FAA supplier performance and technical bias in serving as a pure-play systems integrator.”

Peraton did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Harris Corporation had a decades-long history of involvement in the aviation industry, with a 2016 annual report listing air traffic control management as one of the company’s four key business components.

In 2002, Harris Corporation partnered with Lockheed Martin to develop technology for air traffic management and communications.

In 2009, the Harris Corporation acquired SolaCom Technologies, Inc., a privately held air traffic control company that was based in Quebec, Canada, at the time.

The FAA awarded Harris a 15-year, $291 million contract in 2012 to provide a new communications system for air traffic control as part of the agency’s previous “NextGen” initiative.

NextGen was similar to the Trump administration’s current plan to upgrade U.S. air traffic control nationwide, but with a key difference: it had a timeline of more than 20 years, with 2025 being the initial target date for deployment. A 2024 Department of Transportation report indicated that the project had stalled, with some portions being delayed until at least 2030.

Not content with launching a dizzying cascade of international conflicts, Trump just lobbed a nuke at the Fed. 

While Trump’s vendetta against the Fed’s Lisa Cook set for a January showdown before the Supreme Court, the Trump admin dramatically raised the stakes on Sunday when the NYT first reported, and minutes later Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed that the US central bank had been served grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department threatening a criminal indictment, in what Bloomberg said was a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks on the Fed.

As the NYT first reported, the US attorney’s office in the District of Columbia has opened a criminal investigation into Powell over the central bank’s renovation of its Washington headquarters and whether the Fed Chair lied to Congress about the scope of the project. The inquiry, which includes an analysis of Powell’s public statements and an examination of spending records, was approved in November by Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of President Trump who was appointed to run the office last year, the NYT sources said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed US attorneys offices to look into cases of potential taxpayer abuse, said one of the NYT sources. In comments broadcast by NBC, Trump said that the DOJ’s Fed subpoenas “nothing to do with interest rates” and denied any involvement in the legal matter.

The investigation escalates Trump’s long-running feud with Powell, whom the president has continually attacked for resisting his demands to slash interest rates significantly (and, in retrospect, Trump was right as the Fed did in fact cut rates at its last 3 meetings having belatedly observed the dramatic deterioration in the labor market without an offsetting surge in inflation). The president has threatened to fire the Fed chair – whom he nominated for the position in 2017 – and raised the prospect of a lawsuit against him related to the $2.5 billion renovation, citing “incompetence.”

In a striking public response to the NYT report, Powell – who has historically ignored public commentary on Trump’s public assaults – issued a forceful written and video statement released Sunday evening using the Federal Reserve’s official account on X, in which he said the action was related to his June congressional testimony on ongoing renovations of the Fed’s headquarters. But he said “this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.” The Fed Chair then continued:

“This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts.”

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

“I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure,” 

“Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.”

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: https://t.co/5dfrkByGyX pic.twitter.com/O4ecNaYaGH

— Federal Reserve (@federalreserve) January 12, 2026

In the statement, Powell said he intends to continue doing his job “with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.” He did not discuss the fact that his delayed actions during the covid crisis sparked the biggest bout of runaway inflation in 40 years, presided over the biggest insider trading scandal at the Fed which led to multiple resignations at the central bank, and was explicitly political by cutting rates in September 2024, two months before the November election, in a bid to sway the vote for Kamala Harris. 

Ironically, this latest dramatic escalation in the war between the White House and the Marriner Eccles building which are located less than a mile apart, takes place even as Powell has been doing what Trump has wanted all along: cutting rates. The president has repeatedly called for aggressive rate cuts and repeatedly mused about firing Powell. In another extraordinary step, Trump also sought to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The Supreme Court is set to take up the Cook case later this month.

While the Fed last month cut their benchmark rate to a target range of 3.5% to 3.75%, the third consecutive quarter-point cut, after holding rates steady through much of 2025 when inflation was supposedly about to surge, yet never did while shelter inflation sank to multi-year lows, officials have signaled they’re in no rush to lower rates again until they have more data on inflation and jobs.

since a few ppl don’t get it
– he has been a failure post covid, and is yet unaccustomed to any scrutiny, now playing a hero
– lawfare has been a fact of American politics since at least Obama; 10x’ed under Biden > if you were not protesting back then, sorry

— Barbarian Capital (@BarbarianCap) January 12, 2026

Policymakers meet next in  just over two weeks, on Jan. 27-28, with futures trading shows a minimal chance of a move at that gathering.

Powell’s term as chair will expire in May. His underlying seat on the Fed’s Board of Governor’s doesn’t end until 2028. He hasn’t indicated whether he intends to depart in May or stay on at the central bank.

Earlier this weekend, Trump said he has already picked his nominee to replace Powell. He has not named Powell’s successor, but Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, is a front-runner.

In response to news of the investigation, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee which oversees the Fed, came to the Fed’s defense on Sunday night. In a statement he said he would “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed — including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy — until this legal matter is fully resolved.”

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question,” Tillis said.

The Trump administration last summer ramped up scrutiny over the Fed’s renovation of two historic buildings and rising costs associated with the project. Fed budget documents show cost estimates for the project had risen to $2.5 billion in 2025, compared with $1.9 billion in 2023. In testimony last June, Powell broadly disputed media reports, and criticisms from administration officials and some congressional Republicans, that the project had extravagant design features, such as a VIP dining room and roof terrace gardens, Bloomberg reported.

Powell also said during the testimony that the project’s plans had “continued to evolve” and that some earlier features “are no longer in the plans.”

Office of Management Director Russ Vought referenced the testimony in a letter he sent to Powell last July asking for details on the renovation. Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Administration and a fierce critic of Powell, has alleged that Powell lied about the specifics of the project during the hearing and suggested the matter could amount to sufficient legal “cause” to justify removing the Fed chief from his role. At the time, Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna also asked the DOJ to consider investigating and prosecuting Powell for allegedly lying under oath in his testimony.

Amid the controversy, Trump toured the renovation site and signaled the project was not reason enough to fire Powell. Months later, on Dec. 29, Trump said he was considering a “gross incompetence” lawsuit against Powell related to the project.

Under the law that created the Fed, the president can remove members of the Board of Governors only for cause, generally interpreted to mean inefficiency, malfeasance in office or neglect of duty.

“It sounds like Trumpian vengeance and pressuring him to leave in May,” said Mark Spindel, author of The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve, said in reaction to the subpoenas. “If Powell hung around on the board, that complicates Trump’s majority — he needs the seats.”

Ironically, by escalation the Fed against Powell, Trump may have made Powell’s decision to stick around and mess with the president’s plans for a ultradovish Fed, problematic.

Or maybe not and it’s all for show: according to the latest Polymarket odds, the probability of Powell being federally charged by June 30 – a date that is beyond Powell’s chairman tenure – is only 18%.

The US dollar weakened on news of the probe, falling against all its major counterparts, while gold extended gains to a record high and bitcoin jumped. Futures on the S&P 500 Index fell 0.3%.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Jan. 11 told Cuba that it should forge a deal with the United States now that Washington has pushed Venezuela to cut off its supply of oil and money to the communist-run island.

After the U.S. military captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez has redirected oil deliveries to the United States.

Cutting off Venezuelan oil supply to Cuba, which has historically relied on support from Caracas, would apply significant pressure to the Caribbean country, which has been under communist control since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE!” Trump wrote on social media, referring to the Cuban security forces who were killed during the operation to capture Maduro and bring him to the United States to face a federal indictment.

The U.S. president said Venezuela no longer needs protection from Cuban security forces now that it has the United States, “the most powerful military in the world,” to protect its officials.

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA—ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump said.

Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, leader of the Cuban regime, responded to Trump in a series of social media posts on Jan. 10, saying the communist nation is “ready to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood.”

“Those who blame the [communist] Revolution for the severe economic shortages we suffer should hold their tongues in shame,” he said.

As Jacob Burg reports for The Epoch Times, assessments by the U.S. Intelligence Community paint a grim picture inside the communist nation, with Cuba’s tourism and agriculture industries significantly affected by routine blackouts, trade sanctions, and a host of other problems.

The island’s tourism industry has seen a decline since the COVID-19 pandemic, and its economy has retracted alongside Venezuela’s over the past decade. U.S. embargos have also added to Cuba’s domestic concerns.

Between January 2025 and November 2025, Caracas sent an average of 27,000 barrels per day to Cuba, accounting for roughly 50 percent of the island’s oil deficit, or a quarter of Cuba’s total energy demand, according to the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA’s shipping data and reports.

Cuba also receives oil shipments from Russia, which will likely become one of the island’s sole remaining suppliers if Washington’s oil embargo continues.

Mexico has also supplied Cuba with oil, although Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Jan. 7 that recent oil exports to the island are not higher than what they have been historically.

Pressure on Cuba increased after the United States seized two additional Venezuelan-linked oil tankers on Jan. 7.

Trump recently told reporters on Air Force One that he thinks that “Cuba looks like it is ready to fall.”

“I don’t know if they’re going to hold out, but Cuba now has no income,” he said. “They got all their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil.”

Richard Feinberg, a professor emeritus at the University of California–San Diego, who has served in several high-ranking U.S. national security roles, told Reuters that Cuba’s economic conditions are “certainly very bad.”

“When a population is really hungry, what it does is, your day-to-day is just about survival. You don’t think about politics, all you think about is putting bread on the table for your family,” Feinberg said. “On the other hand, people can become so desperate that they lose their fear, and they take to the streets.”