Trump's ‘Golden Dome' defence plan includes space missiles, lasers: Report
According to a series of slides, titled 'Go Fast, Think Big!', presented to some 3,000 defence contractors in Huntsville, Alabama, last week, Reuters says that plans for the Golden Dome include three layers of missile interceptors, radar arrays and lasers, in addition to its space-based defences.
While the presentation highlighted that the US 'has built both interceptors and re-entry vehicles' for space-based missile interception before, the plans also acknowledged that the US has never built a vehicle that can handle the heat of reentry while targeting an enemy missile, according to Reuters.
Trump has estimated his Golden Dome could cost $175bn.
So far, Congress has appropriated $25bn for the system in the president's tax and spending bill passed in July. Another $45.3bn is earmarked for the Golden Dome in Trump's 2026 presidential budget request.
'They have a lot of money, but they don't have a target of what it costs yet,' a US official cited by Reuters said.
Plans for the dome included a map showing that a new large-scale missile field, with systems built by Lockheed Martin, could be located in the US Midwest, Reuters reported.
The site would be in addition to two similar missile fields that already exist in southern California and Alaska.
Lockheed Martin has described the Gold Dome as 'a defence system that shields America from aerial threats, hypersonic missiles and drone swarms with unmatched speed and accuracy'.
'Thanks to President Trump's vision, Golden Dome will make this a reality, securing our future,' Lockheed Martin wrote in a post on social media in March.
Reuters said the slides did not include any references to Elon Musk's SpaceX, which was part of a bid for Golden Dome contracts, alongside the software maker Palantir and defence systems manufacturer Anduril.
Trump campaigned on building 'a missile defence shield around our country,' in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. At an earlier campaign event in July 2024, Trump compared his plans with Israel's Iron Dome.
The Iron Dome is Israel's missile defence system, which detects an incoming rocket, determines its path and intercepts it. The system was developed with more than $1bn in funding from the US.
Days after taking office on January 27, Trump signed an executive order to 'immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defence shield, which will be able to protect Americans'.
Although Trump secured $25bn for the system in his tax and spending bill, which also included significant cuts to federal funding for other programmes, including Medicaid, the project still faces a significant funding shortfall.
Trump suggested in May that the shortfall could be partly made up by Canada paying $61bn towards the project.
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Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US sanctions Brazil health officials over Cuba's overseas medical missions
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Al Jazeera
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The coalition issued a statement outlining four key requirements they believe should form the basis of Friday's talks. They said 'meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or a lasting and significant cessation of hostilities'. Second, if Russia refuses a ceasefire in Alaska, sanctions and other economic measures should be intensified to further strain its war economy. Third, 'international borders must not be changed by force'. Fourth, Ukraine should receive strong security guarantees, with the Coalition of the Willing ready to help, including a reassurance force after hostilities end. 'No limitations should be placed on Ukraine's armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries,' the statement said. And Russia cannot veto Ukraine's path to EU or NATO membership. Will the European intervention influence the Alaska summit? It's unclear, but analysts say that Wednesday's calls show how Europe has managed to make sure that Trump can't ignore the continent. 'Even if certain commitments are given, we don't know what will happen once Putin and Trump find themselves in a room,' Lucian Kim, a senior analyst for Ukraine with the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera. 'The Europeans have quite a lot of power and even more than they realise themselves,' he said, adding that it was an 'achievement' for European leaders to get Trump's attention, and there is now a difference in tone. 'It was not a given when Trump first got into office that he would listen to the Europeans,' he said. Kim also noted that Europe has used its power and influence to pressure Russia over the war. 'Russia was heavily dependent on Europe, not the United States, and this lack of trade is hurting Russia,' he said. 'Also, you have European banks that are holding hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian government assets.' 'Trump has realised that without the Europeans, it will be very hard to reach any solution in Ukraine.' What has Russia said so far about any peace agreement? On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexey Fadeev told a press conference that Moscow's position remained unchanged since President Putin outlined it in June 2024. At the time, Putin had said that a ceasefire would take effect immediately if the Ukrainian government withdrew from four Ukrainian regions partially occupied by Russia — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. He also insisted that Ukraine must formally abandon its bid to join the NATO military alliance. Russia currently controls about 19 percent of Ukraine, including the entirety of Crimea and Luhansk, over 70 percent of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as well as small portions of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Qatar Tribune
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Common ground with US strengthened after call, says Von der Leyen
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