Trump Announces $175B 'Golden Dome' Missile Defense System for US

The Department of Defense has selected a design for President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative, Trump announced on May 20.

“I’m 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,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to devise a plan to implement his missile defense proposal.

“It should be fully operational before the end of my term. So we'll have it done in about three years,” the president said.

Trump said the plan that the Department of Defense has selected should cost about $175 billion to complete.

The plan will meld new technologies with existing U.S. missile defense systems.

Canada may also partner with the United States to help develop the improved missile defense shield, the president said.

“Canada wants to be a part of it, which would be a fairly small expansion, but we'll work with them on pricing,” he said.

In addition to new and improved space-based sensors and interceptors, Trump’s January executive order called for the Department of Defense to consider non-kinetic missile interception technologies such as lasers.

The order also tasked the department with examining methods and technologies for intercepting missile threats before they can launch, or in their initial boost phase.

Trump vowed that the $175 billion missile defense program would allow the United States to effectively counter advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic ballistic missiles.

“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’re launched from space. And we will have the best system ever built,” the president said.

Standing beside Trump during the Oval Office announcement, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth noted the parallels between Trump’s missile defense proposal and the Strategic Defense Initiative put forth by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative included a number of aspirational missile defense concepts, and some critics referred to it as Reagan’s “Star Wars” proposal.

“President Reagan, 40 years ago, cast the vision for it. The technology wasn’t there. Now it is, and you’re following through,” Hegseth told Trump.

Congressional Republicans have put forth a $150 billion supplemental military spending package, with about $25 billion set aside to kickstart the Golden Dome project. The $150 billion defense spending plan is one piece of a larger bill that Trump and his allies are hoping to pass through the reconciliation process, avoiding a potential Senate filibuster.

Trump expressed confidence that the reconciliation bill will pass.

“We’ve already spoken to everybody that we have to speak to,” he said.

“Everybody’s in line.”

Adding to his Golden Dome announcement on May 20, Trump named Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, as the program manager for the project.

Trump said Guetlein is “one of the most respected people in the world, having to do with defense.”