GAME CHANGER: President Trump Announces Launch of Golden Dome Defense

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

The Golden Dome for the golden age.

“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.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth: “The Golden Dome for America’s a game changer. A generational investment in security in America and Americans…” (DOD)

President Trump announced the Golden Dome missile defense shield to protect the homeland from advanced missile threats.

Included in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, this project aims to ensure American security. Congress must pass the bill and send it to the President’s desk. pic.twitter.com/U0gwZ9DNnV

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 21, 2025

.Tom Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies: it’s not just going to be about the rogue state ballistic missiles anymore. It has to be, and rightly should be, about that full spectrum, to include air and cruise missile defense. We’ve known intellectually that this is a problem for the defense of the homeland, a strategic problem, and I think – I’m hopeful that that will be gone after. And then, likewise, I think a – you see bits of this in the reconciliation bill, by the way. You see big chunks of money going to hypersonic defense over and above our current programs, to directed energy, these kinds of things. So I think you’re going to see an emphasis on next-generation capability in the main, but also more procurement in the near term of stuff that we can turn the procurement volume dial up on. So it’s going to be a mix of those things. It’s going to be heavy on space – space interceptors and perhaps some space-based interceptors if that R&D work goes well. So I think it’s a – it’s a very good moment for missile defense. It’s been a – frankly, it’s been a great couple years for missile defense. As you and I have talked, it’s a miracle that more missiles did not get through on April 14 of last year. It’s a miracle that so many of those Iranian ballistic missiles in October of last year were taken out (CSIS).

The announcement Tuesday was a follow through on an earlier executive order from the president (White House).

But the vision is really a longer-term follow-through on Reagan’s vision—a vision often derisively mocked as Star Wars. Quoting the Gipper from March 23, 1983: Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope. It is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive. Let us turn to the very strengths in technology that spawned our great industrial base and that have given us the quality of life we enjoy today. What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? (Reagan Library). The White House announcement yesterday: (White House).

Trump: ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense shield with be online by end of term

“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever, ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” he added.

By Ben Whedon, Just The News, May 20, 2025:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that the administration had settled upon a design for the “Golden Dome” missile defense shield it hopes to build and that it would be operational by the end of his term.

The “Golden Dome” was inspired by the Israeli “Iron Dome” defense shield.

“This design for the golden dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term,” Trump declared.

“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever, ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” he added. “And the success rate is very close to 100% which is incredible, when you think of it, you’re shooting bullets out of the air.”

“I’m also pleased to report that the one big, beautiful bill will include $25 billion for the golden dome to help construction get underway. That’s the initial sort of a down positive, and we have probably, you’re talking about general we’re talking about $175 billion total cost of this when it’s completed,” he added.

He further indicated that the Canadians were interested in working with the U.S. to include their territory in the defense grid.