The administration is going ahead with plans to construct a multibillion-dollar “Golden Dome” missile defense system, which President Donald Trump said on Tuesday will be fully operational by 2029.
“This design for the Golden Dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term,” Trump said while announcing the plan. “So we’ll have it done in about three years. Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space.”
Trump first expressed desire for the missile defense system, which mirrors Israel’s Iron Dome, when he saw Israel’s ability to deflect Iranian missiles. Trump wants to build “the greatest dome of them all,” he has said, to protect America from potential foreign threats. The system is estimated to cost $175 billion and will be designed to detect and stop hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise missiles.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Pentagon Vice Chief of Space Operations General Michael Guetlein joined Trump for the announcement. Guetlein will help lead the project.
Trump signed an executive order in January asking Hegseth to pursue the idea. Since then, officials have been drafting plans for an air defense system similar to the Strategic Defense Initiative envisioned by former President Ronald Reagan.
“This is like the monster systems engineering problem. This is the monster integration problem,” Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment Steven J. Morani said in March. “This is going to be layers of architecture working together at all group level elevations . . . to protect the United States, . . . so we’re going to need all the services and agencies that do this kind of work to step up.”
“Consistent with protecting the homeland and per President Trump’s [executive order], we’re working with the industrial base and [through] supply chain challenges associated with standing up the Golden Dome,” Morani added.
Information discovered through an intel assessment this month revealed that China is expanding its missile capability to include weapons that can thwart early detection among other nations’ missile defenses. China will boast 60 nuclear-capable missiles with such capabilities by 2035, the Defense Intelligence Agency revealed in its report.
“The era of denial and wishing for the best from the PLA has finally ended,” Jacqueline Deal, a nonresident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told National Review‘s Jimmy Quinn last week. “DIA’s transparency is commendable. This threat is why President Trump issued his Iron Dome Executive Order within a week of being inaugurated. We are building out a national missile defense system to protect the country, including capabilities in space, and we are contributing to our allies’ missile defense capabilities.”