President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday evening directing the Pentagon to immediately begin construction of an Iron Dome missile defense system modeled after the one that Israel has used during its war with Hamas and other Iran-backed proxies.
The U.S. has contributed at least $2.6 billion in funding to Israel’s Iron Dome since 2011 but has not created its own comparable system. Before his reelection, Trump promised to change that.
“We protect other countries, but we don’t protect ourselves,” Trump said at House Republicans’ annual policy retreat in Florida, adding that the defense system is only possible because of “phenomenal” advanced technology. According to Fox News, the president signed the order on Air Force One flying back to Washington, D.C.
The defensive system would protect the U.S. from “ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next generation aerial attacks” by deploying space-based systems and other intercept capabilities, according to the executive order. No such missile has been fired at the U.S., although the White House says they have posed an increasingly “catastrophic threat” over the past 40 years.
“Notwithstanding this increasing threat, United States homeland missile defense policy has been limited to staying ahead of rogue nation threats and accidental or unauthorized missile launches,” the order states.
It does not say how much this system would cost or how long development would take.
The action delivers on the Republican Party’s 2024 campaign platform to modernize the military.
“Republicans will ensure our Military is the most modern, lethal and powerful Force in the World,” the platform reads. “We will invest in cutting-edge research and advanced technologies, including an Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield, support our Troops with higher pay, and get woke Leftwing Democrats fired as soon as possible.”
Trump first floated the idea of building an American Iron Dome during his 2024 campaign, promising a “state-of-the-art missile defense shield made in the USA.”
Monday’s order dropped after recently confirmed secretary of defense Pete Hegseth told reporters there would be a number of military-related executive orders coming down later in the day.
“Today, there are more executive orders coming that we fully support, on removing DEI inside the Pentagon, reinstating troops who were pushed out because of COVID mandates, Iron Dome for America,” he said. “This is happening quickly.”
Besides the ones Hegseth mentioned, Trump also signed an executive order to ban transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military. This directive reverses the Biden-era policy that overturned the first Trump administration’s restrictions on transgender troops. During his inaugural address, Trump said he would formally recognize only two genders: male and female.
Trump’s move to authorize an Iron Dome is reminiscent of former president Ronald Reagan’s push for a space-based missile defense system, the Strategic Defense Initiative, informally known as “Star Wars.” Proposed to protect the U.S. from Soviet missile attacks, the Cold War-era program never came to fruition.
Trump referenced Reagan’s plan while addressing House Republicans, saying the U.S. “luckily” did not implement it because “we didn’t have the technology then.”