US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order to start building an “Iron Dome” air defense system for the United States, like the one that Israel has used to intercept thousands of rockets.

“We need to immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield, which will be able to protect Americans,” Trump earlier told a Republican congressional retreat in Miami.

Trump said the system “will be made right here in the USA.”

During the 2024 election campaign Trump repeatedly promised to build a version of Israel’s Iron Dome system for the United States. But he ignored the fact that the system is designed for short-range threats, making it ill-suited to defending against intercontinental missiles that are the main danger to the United States.

As part of its multi-layer air defense capabilities, Israel also has systems to protect against medium- and long-range projectiles.

While titled “the Iron Dome for America,” the executive order calls for the development of air defense systems to protect Americans against long-range threats such “ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.”

The order also calls to “increase bilateral and multilateral cooperation on missile defense technology development, capabilities, and operations,” as well as to “increase and accelerate the provision of United States missile defense capabilities to allies and partners.”

In his remarks Monday, Trump again sung the praises of the Israeli system, which Israel has used to shoot down rockets fired by its regional foes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon during the war sparked by the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.

“They knock down just about every one of them,” Trump said. “So I think the United States is entitled to that.”