Trump says U.S. has chosen plan for ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the government will move forward on construction of a multibillion-dollar “Golden Dome” missile defense system that will use a constellation of satellites and space-based weapons to intercept ballistic attacks on the United States.

For months, Trump has pushed for such a system, citing increasingly sophisticated threats from countries such as Russia, China and North Korea.

“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, and we will have the best system ever built,” Trump said in the Oval Office alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who later described the project as a “game changer.”

Trump said Tuesday that his administration had settled on an architecture for the project and claimed that the system could be operational within three years, before the end of his second term. Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of operations for the U.S. Space Force, will oversee the Golden Dome’s progress, Trump said.

Trump has already allocated $25 billion in the federal budget toward the construction of the Golden Dome in the massive budget bill that Republicans in Congress aim to pass in the coming weeks. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that deploying and operating just the space-based interceptors of the new missile defense system could cost anywhere from $161 billion to $542 billion over the next two decades. On Tuesday, Trump said he estimated the system would cost $175 billion.

Trump, who created the U.S. Space Force during his first term, has long spoken of wanting a Golden Dome, akin to the “Iron Dome” over Israel but also with weapons based in space instead of just on land. Shortly after taking office again in January, Trump signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to work on plans for a “next-generation missile defense shield.”

“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States,” Trump wrote in the order, noting that official U.S. missile defense policy has not evolved beyond staying ahead of “rogue-nation threats” and “accidental or unauthorized missile launches.”

The order noted that the threat of missile attacks on the United States has only become “more intense and complex” over the past 40 years.

The Golden Dome concept comes as the Pentagon is increasingly concerned about long-range missiles that adversaries of the U.S. are building. Last week, the Defense Intelligence Agency released an assessment that said China possesses about 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles, Russia has 350 and North Korea has a handful. Those numbers are supposed to climb in the coming years, with Iran also pursuing the weapons, the assessment said.

The potential cost and nebulous nature of the defense system have raised concerns about the project having unintended costs. Last week, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, told reporters that money set aside at the moment is “essentially a slush fund at this point,” with no detailed plan designed.

Reed, speaking at a Defense Writers Group briefing, said the most significant part of the Golden Dome system appears to be the detection of threats and communication of them. The “easier part,” he said, will be developing weapons to take down incoming threats.

Last month, Gen. Stephen Whiting, the top officer overseeing the Pentagon’s Space Command, said the Golden Dome system was likely to include missile-defense satellites, some of which can launch weapons to intercept weapons from adversaries.

“Space will be foundational to the success of the Golden Dome,” Whiting said, speaking at a conference in Colorado. Collaboration among components of the Defense Department is ongoing to develop requirements that the Golden Dome system would need, he said.

Behind the Resolute Desk on Tuesday were giant posters touting Trump’s proposed missile defense project.

One poster depicted a map of the U.S. encircled by a shiny golden ring, with the words “GOLDEN DOME FOR AMERICA” emblazoned across the bottom. Another showed a glowing web of light covering the country, with a quote from Trump written across the top: “This is a Very Dangerous World. We’re going to protect our citizens like never before.”