China Is Unhappy with Trump’s “Golden Dome” Missile Defense Plans
The project draws conceptual inspiration from Israel’s Iron Dome but is designed to be far more expansive.
The “Golden Dome” is a proposed, large-scale missile defense system announced by President Donald Trump to shield the U.S. from advanced missile threats, including ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles.
The project draws conceptual inspiration from Israel’s Iron Dome but is designed to be far more expansive, aiming to protect the entire U.S. homeland and potentially its allies (including Canada).
“The Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space,” the president said, adding that he wants it to be operational before his term ends.
The concept includes both ground- and space-based capabilities that would defend against missiles by: detecting and destroying them ahead of launch, intercepting them early in flight, halting them midcourse and stopping them in the last few moments of approaching a target.
The initiative would have multiple layers that expand on what the U.S. already has and build new programs to counter the full range of aerial threats, according to Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of U.S. Northern Command, who testified in front of Congress in April.
He described a domain awareness layer to track threats and then two other layers, “the first being an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) defeat layer, which largely exists today with the GBIs (ground-based interceptors) that can defeat a North Korean threat and then an air layer that would defeat cruise missiles and air threats.”
This week, Trump said he had selected a design for the $175-billion Golden Dome missile defense shield and named a Space Force general to head the program.
Trump told a White House press conference that U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein would be the lead program manager for an effort widely viewed as the keystone to Trump’s military planning.
Golden Dome will “protect our homeland,” Trump said, adding that Canada had said it wanted to be part of it.
In a statement, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he and his ministers were discussing a new security and economic relationship with their American counterparts.
“These discussions naturally include strengthening NORAD and related initiatives such as the Golden Dome,” it added.
Trump said the defense shield, which would cost some $175 billion, should be operational by the end of his term in January 2029, but industry experts were less certain of that timeframe and the cost.
🚨 #BREAKING: President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have announced the GOLDEN DOME missile defense system for the U.S.
"Golden Dome will be capable of catching missiles from across the world or even SPACE."
"We'll be completing the job Reagan started 40 years ago!"
Trump also… pic.twitter.com/MX1URx1fa0
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 20, 2025
It appears that China’s officials are unhappy with the move, accusing Trump of “weaponizing space“.
Golden Dome has a “strong offensive nature and violates the principle of peaceful use in the Outer Space Treaty,” Chinese Foreign Minister Mao Ning said Wednesday.
“The project will heighten the risk of turning space into a war zone and creating a space arms race, and shake the international security and arms control system,” Mao said. “We urge the U.S. to give up developing and deploying global anti-missile system.”
Both China and Russia have placed offensive weapons in space, like anti-satellite capabilities that could potentially be used to try to take the U.S. offline, American intelligence officials have warned.
I am sure China is very unhappy with Trump’s plans to revitalize the American military and enhance our national defenses. It has a good 4 years of Biden’s autopen giving Chinese leaders exactly what they wanted when they wanted it.
Russia seems a little more chill with the prospect.
In Russia’s capital, meanwhile, the Kremlin said Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s plans would require consultations between Moscow and Washington, but a spokesperson said it was largely a “sovereign matter” for the U.S.
It was a softer stance than taken previously by the regime of President Vladimir Putin, which had recently published a statement saying the new American missile defense system would explicitly give Moscow an impetus “for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space.”
Israel’s Iron Dome has consistently demonstrated a high interception rate, with Israeli officials and independent assessments reporting success rates typically of around 90% for rockets and projectiles deemed to threaten populated areas. For example, during the May 2021 conflict, over 4,300 rockets were fired from Gaza, with more than 1,500 targeting populated areas. Iron Dome intercepted over 90% of those, significantly reducing casualties and damage.
The US Army has recently obtained at least two Iron Dome batteries.
It has consistently blocked more than 90% of rockets fired towards Israel, with a naval version deployed to protect ships and other assets in 2017.
This is why the number of Israeli deaths in the current war with Hamas has remained low, while those in Gaza continue to increase.
Soon after it began operating it became the envy of other militaries.
Rafael has said it has supplied at least two Iron Dome batteries to the US army, with Ukraine having made a similar request.
If we can get Elon Musk’s efficiency team on the project, I am sure we can make our dome system even bigger and more golden.
If the golden dome works, it will be the first time since the 1960s that the USA doesn't have to worry about a nuclear missile strike. It will change the world. It could seriously lead to the end of the threat of nuclear war as we have known it for generations as well as…
— unseen1 (@unseen1_unseen) May 21, 2025
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
I’ve always been intrigued by protests surrounding defensive weapons systems, as if to say ‘we’re pissed that you would dare defend yourself against our offense weapons’.
As with all things Chinese with me of late: “so sad, too bad.”
Perhaps we could put a golden dome over our universities to protect them from all the Chinese students stealing our technology.
A golden done over our consumer dollars.
How about a nice simple gold standard to redeem dollars for gold at market rate restricted to US.Citizens from banks and bondholders from Treasury at end of maturity? That would definitely do more to bring an end to excess Gov’t spending and excess Gov’t debt than almost anything short of a
revolution.
But but but…! Going off the gold standard must have been the right thing to do! After all, it was a Republican president who did that.
Really FDR for most of.what I am proposing though Nixon did end the last vestiges in stopping conversion by foreign central banks. Of course without this linkage to gold gov’t debt skyrocketed and so did the share of.wealth held by the top 15% mostly in top 3%. The top 10% holds roughly 90% of assets in the USA which is fine if it was earned and not the result of structural design allowing those with access to credit to use financial leverage unavailable to the rest of us, get big bailouts when things went sideways for them and have near zero interest rates for 15 years to fuel their acquisition while simultaneously we’ve had a relentless five.decade+ long decline in real wages and the deliberate destruction of the broad middle-class via globalisation.
Hey Winnie the Pooh, shut up and go milk Eeyore.
Israel deaths “remained low, while those in Gaza continue to increase.”
This is justice, now 1o-100-1000…. X more would be good.
I hope a better than 90% success rate is achievable. That is not an acceptable margin for a nuclear strike. At most it would be an advantage that might be a deterrent.
Meh, 90% success against what size target package? If we get a 100% success rate v four/five dozen targets with the efficiency dropping off with each additional two.dozen then that has pretty well neutralized the atmospheric EMP threat and the sorts of limited/smaller strikes a rouge State or non State actor could deploy. Numbers above that would be solely Nation State and pretty much limited to a handful of Nations with the current inventory or capability to increase inventory to get above that threshold.
I’m sure package size matters. I would hope anything that can deliver a nuke would have a practical success rate of 100% due to its size. Nukes typically don’t come in small packages.
Good.
” It could seriously lead to the end of the threat of nuclear war as we have known it for generations as well as total nuclear disarmament.”
Pie in the sky. We’ll have to really contend with “suitcase nukes” and “dirty bombs”
Nobody will give up their nukes among the big boys
dont worry
the dnc is already photo copying china the plans
I’m not a proponent of golden dome. China and Russia are not Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, or Houthis. Their technology like ours is much more sophisticated. They can build bigger missiles with more warheads and decoys per missile and make them highly maneuverable. They have space capability to kill, blind or at least degrade our space assets. etc…. etc… etc..
Most importantly it is much cheaper to build offensive than defensive capability.
BTW: I’m guessing that iron domes 90% interception rate is on just that, an interception rate. Iron dome doesn’t attempt to interecept all possible targets. Part of the genius behind it is that it determines which targets will hits areas it is programmed to protect and engages only those, All others it ignores, That won’t do for a general nuclear missile defense since for soft targets which most are a miss is as good as a hit.
I worked on the ABM system 50+ years ago (using the Sprint/Spartan missile systems) and it was very impressive technology for the time. However, with the introduction of Multiple Reentry Vehicles and Multiple independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles the defense could be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of incoming targets. In addition, use of nuclear warheads to eliminate incoming targets can create blinding of the radar systems so that they cannot detect a later wave of warheads. As noted above, even using smaller warheads in MIRVs will still create significant damage and loss of life when targeted against soft targets, which populations centers are. Precision targeting with a larger warhead may be required against hardened targets such as missile silos but smaller warheads hitting in the general area will destroy soft targets. Plus the radiation remaining after the blast would be devastating (which why some people moved to the Pacific Northwest in the 70s as they believed that they would avoid the radiation clouds from explosions east of them and that the radiation from China and the USSR would be largely dissipated when it reached the Northwest.
Such a system might be effective against a few missiles launched by a rogue state or by a group taking control of a small number of missiles but it would likely (possibly) delay damage and deaths until a later fusillade of missiles fired by a peer or near peer opponent evaded whatever defensive systems were still functional.
There is also the danger that the existence of an extensive defensive system could lead possible opponents to believe that the possessor of the system planned to commit a first strike and that the surviving missiles would be dealt with by the defensive system. In this case what was designed to be a defensive system could be interpreted as part of a larger offensive plan, with that perception leading to the initiation of a first strike of their own.
Thank you for your comments. I thought the Sprint especially was awesome. Every so often I go back and watch a video or 2 of it.
How the system was deployed in part makes sense. It was use to defend certain minuteman missile fields. If were to build an updated system using it in this fashion might make sense. In fact using an ABM system to further defend hardened targets might make sense.
What really needs to be done is to update our existing land missiles. There is a plan in place but I’ve read they’re having problems with the new missile. Russia has updated their missiles multiple times and China has started building a large number of land based missiles. We need to modernize our and perhaps make it mobile in some fashion like the Russians to make it less vulnerable. (We had a plan to do so but it was cancelled).
I worked on the Perimeter Aquisition Radar (PAR) (North Dakota tourist attraction?) but during lunch breaks we watched films (16 mm as video was still a decade away). It always amazed me that the Sprint missiles actually held together given the acceleration (they lived up to their name).
Good, if the Chinese don’t like something that’s probably a sign that it’s a pretty damn good idea
The US will build it, and Canada will paint it gold. That will be their 2% contribution. As for the dome itself, meh, it’ll never be able to stop nuclear missiles, only conventional ones. I think it is a diversion by Trump to get some movement on peace talks, and he will offer the dome up in exchange for peace.
Meh we can ID the particular target so if Canada is still petulant and Toronto is the target city… well …
I.dont understand what you claiming. The payload doesn’t impact the the ability to intercept the missile. Obviously if done too late after it is over the target then yeah it is less effective. Done in boost phase or earlier and no problem.
What? No more Chinese Weather Balloons? Science will surely suffer.
President Xi is perfectly justified in being upset, after all that China did for former president Biden, his family, Kamala . . .
This works best for small countries and cities. For example south korea, and japan. State of hawaii could be defensed with this type system, but skeptical about reliability over entire continent.
Continent or island or peninsula, it all comes down to numbers. A space based system could destroy offensive weapons during boost phase (perhaps with lasers?) or in transit. Once terminal phase is reached and multiple warheads are deployed, the defender’s chances of success fall precipitously due to numbers of warheads and complications of multiple thermonuclear explosions in the proximity of the defensive systems.
Living on the East Coast, I have no illusions that any system will be effective against a full fusillade of nuclear warheads. I didn’t believe that getting under my desk in elementary school would actually help and my view of the Golden Dome system is the same.