President Donald Trump unveiled at the White House his plans to build a massive missile-shield system to protect the United States against threats from North Korea and other adversarial nations.
Trump announced the “Golden Dome” program alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Space Force Vice Chief of Operations, General Michael Guetlein on Tuesday afternoon. “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,” the president said.
Trump added that Canada has already been in contact about collaboration on the program and would like to be included in protection plans. “So as usual, we help Canada do the best we can,” Trump added.
The multi-billion-dollar Golden Dome program will integrate new systems with existing defense capabilities. If all goes according to plan, the new system should be online by the end of the year, the president told reporters.
Trump pointed to U.S. collaboration with Israel in building the Iron Dome defense system, stating that the new program will expand on those efforts. “And now we have technology that’s even far advanced from that,” he said.
“But including hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles and advanced cruise missiles. All of them will be knocked out of the air. We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland. And the success rate is very close to 100 percent, which is incredible.”
Under the budget proposal currently being debated in the House, roughly $25 billion in funds will be earmarked for Golden Dome development. While turning to General Guetlein, Trump noted that the program will likely cost more than $175 billion upon completion.
Administration officials told Reuters that Guetlein will be tapped as lead program manager for the Golden Dome project. “Today is a great day for the nation as we double down on protection of the homeland,” the general said during Tuesday’s White House announcement.
“As you’re aware, our adversaries have become very capable and very intent on holding the homeland at risk. While we have been focused on the peace overseas, our adversaries have been quickly modernizing their nuclear forces, building out ballistic missiles capable of hosting multiple warheads, building out hypersonic missiles capable of attacking the United States within an hour and traveling at 6,000 miles an hour, building cruise missiles that can navigate around our radar and our defenses, building submarines that can sneak up on our shores, and, worse yet, building space weapons. It is time that we change that equation and start doubling down on the protection of the homeland.”
Guetlein went on to describe the Golden Dome project as “bold and aggressive approach” to bolster homeland defense capabilities. “We owe it to our children and our children’s children to protect them and afford them a quality of life that we have all grown up enjoying. Golden Dome will afford that,” he added.
Last month, Reuters reported that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two of its partners have emerged as frontrunners to build part of the missile defense system. The company will be teaming up with software giant Palantir and defense technology company Anduril for a joint bid, while executives from all three companies have met with the Pentagon in recent weeks, according to the report.
The plan includes the construction of anywhere between 400 and 1,000 satellites to track the movement of missiles around the globe. An additional fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then eliminate the projectiles. SpaceX and its partners are not expected to have any involvement with the combat portion of the plan, Reuters noted.
President Trump talked about building an Iron Dome-style system for the U.S. while on the campaign trail and put the plan into action back in January, when he tasked Secretary Hegseth with drawing up initial plans.
