In a new executive order named the “Iron Dome for America,” President Donald Trump is calling for an upgraded defense against missile attacks against America.
Trump previewed the order in comments on Monday to House Republicans, according to Fox News.
Trump said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was “what we need, to immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield, which will be able to protect Americans.”
In his comments, Trump said the United States will “protect other countries, but we don’t protect ourselves.”
Trump noted that President Ronald Reagan, who advocated a space-based missile defense, sought such a system, but the nation “didn’t have the technology.”
“And now we have phenomenal technology. You see that with Israel. So I think the United States is entitled to that. And everything will be made right here in the USA. One hundred percent,” he said, adding, “We’re going next to ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
A fact sheet issued by the White House said the order “accelerates the development and deployment of Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor Layers, proliferated space-based interceptors, a Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, capabilities to defeat salvoes prior to launch, non-kinetic missile defense capabilities, and underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities.”
The executive order hearkens to Reagan’s efforts to protect America from incoming missiles and notes, “The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
“President Ronald Reagan endeavored to build an effective defense against nuclear attacks, and while this program resulted in many technological advances, it was canceled before its goal could be realized. And since the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and initiated development of limited homeland missile defense, official United States homeland missile defense policy has remained only to stay ahead of rogue-nation threats and accidental or unauthorized missile launches,” the order said.
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“Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex with the development by peer and near-peer adversaries of next-generation delivery systems and their own homeland integrated air and missile defense capabilities,” the order said.
The order calls for a plan that can be included in the 2026 federal budget, which takes effect in October, to be presented to Trump in 60 days.
The order also calls for an “updated assessment of the strategic missile threat to the Homeland” and a “prioritized set of locations to progressively defend against a countervalue attack by nuclear adversaries.”
Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation said Trump’s action can bring Reagan’s dream of a safer nation to life, according to the Daily Signal.
“President Trump’s comprehensive missile defense plan for the United States will fulfill President Reagan’s vision for the Strategic Defense Initiative laid out some four decades ago,” Coates said, adding that Trump’s concept mirrors Reagan’s goal ‘to prevent deaths rather than avenge them.’”
“Like Israel’s highly effective system of the same name, President Trump’s Iron Dome will provide an impenetrable defense for the American people that will bring peace through strength,” she said
“The United States and Israel have set the gold standard for missile defense systems, which have reliably foiled enemy missile and drone attacks — most recently intercepting 200 Iranian ballistic missiles launched at Israel on Oct. 1, 2024,” Coates said.
“Given the dangerous global situation President Trump has inherited, it is only prudent to provide this type of protection for the American people as well,” she said.
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