‘Iron Dome’ missile shield for America ordered

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order to start planning for an “Iron Dome” air defense system for the United States, like the one that Israel has used to intercept thousands of rockets.

Trump ordered the defense secretary to submit within 60 days an implementation plan for the “next-generation missile defense shield” designed to guard against ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles, including by the development of space-based interceptors.

During the 2024 election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to build a version of Israel’s Iron Dome system for the US.

However, he ignored the fact that the system is designed for short-range threats, making it ill-suited to defending against intercontinental missiles that are the main danger to the US.

“Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex,” Monday’s executive order said, citing unnamed adversaries’ development of missile launch capabilities.

Trump had earlier told a Republican congressional retreat in Miami that the system would be built in the US.

Israel has used its “Iron Dome” system to shoot down rockets fired by its regional foes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon during the war sparked by the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.

“They knock down just about every one of them,” Trump said at the Miami meeting. “So I think the United States is entitled to that.”

The president signed several other orders related to the US military on Monday, including one setting the path for transgender people to be banned from the armed forces.

Another order reinstates service members dismissed for refusing to take the Covid vaccine, and extending a wider government crackdown on diversity programs to the armed forces.

“To ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military,” Trump told a Republican congressional retreat earlier in Miami.

Trump has previously promised to bring back a ban on transgender troops, but it was not immediately clear what specific steps were contained in the new order, which has not yet been published.