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Trump unveils $175B plans for Golden Dome missile defense shield

Published: 21 May. 2025, 10:19

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event with family members of fallen law enforcement officers in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 19. [EPA/YONHAP]

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a $175 billion plan Tuesday to construct the Golden Dome missile defense shield, including space-based interceptors, before the end of his term, as Washington seeks to neutralize evolving threats from North Korea, China and Russia.

The announcement came after the president signed an executive order in January to build an "Iron Dome for America," pointing to the growing threat of attacks by ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks.

The order included a call for exploring ways to improve theater missile defense of forward-deployed U.S. troops and allied territories, troops and populations, and for increasing and accelerating the provision of U.S. missile defense capabilities to allies and partners.

"This design for the Golden Dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term. So we will have it done in about three years," Trump said at the White House, accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

"Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world [...] even if they are launched from space, and we will have the best system ever built," he added.

The president said the Golden Dome project will cost $175 billion in total while highlighting the importance of it for American security.

"I am pleased to announce that we have officially selected an architecture for this state-of-the-art system that will deploy next-generation technologies across the land, sea and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors," he said. "And Canada has called us, and they want to be part of it."

The Golden Dome name has been derived from Israel's Iron Dome system.

Iron Dome is an air defense architecture intended to intercept hostile short-range rockets and artillery shells. But Trump's Golden Dome refers to a comprehensive missile defense construct to defend the continental United States, its forward-deployed troops and allies.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington on April 30. [EPA/YONHAP]

In a separate statement, Hegseth described the Golden Dome plan as a historic investment in American security.

"The Department [of Defense] remains committed to providing our nation with a strong, credible deterrent and will ensure all work done on Golden Dome for America adds to and does not detract from our ability to deter nuclear and non-nuclear strategic attacks on the United States," Hegseth said.

"Our goal is peace through strength. Golden Dome ensures that the American homeland is not left exposed while adversaries develop more advanced and lethal long-range weapons."

In the 1980s, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan pushed for a missile defense program, called the Strategic Defense Initiative, which included the use of space-based assets to counter threats from nuclear ballistic missiles. But the initiative did not come to fruition due to technical, budgetary and other hurdles.

Yonhap