{"id":22675,"date":"2026-05-14T06:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-proposed-golden-dome-estimated-to-cost-1-2t-over-20-years-2\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T06:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:22:07","slug":"trumps-proposed-golden-dome-estimated-to-cost-1-2t-over-20-years-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-proposed-golden-dome-estimated-to-cost-1-2t-over-20-years-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump&#8217;s proposed &#8216;Golden Dome&#8217; estimated to cost $1.2T over 20 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div xmlns:xlink=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\">\n<div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/author\/fatima-hussein\">             <picture data-crop=\"60x60\"><source type=\"image\/webp\" width=\"60\" height=\"60\"><source width=\"60\" height=\"60\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Staff headshot of Fatima Hussein at the Associated Press bureau in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. (AP Photo\/Andrew Harnik)\" width=\"60\" height=\"60\" src=\"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/6be98bc\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/800x800+0+0\/resize\/60x60!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.googleapis.com%2Fafs-prod%2Fmedia%2Fafs%3AMedium%3A092459061461%2F800.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>                                <bsp-timestamp data-timestamp=\"1778622095000\" data-recent-thresholdinhours=\"1\">                    <template data-date-tpl>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]<\/template>                    <span data-date><\/span>                <\/bsp-timestamp>            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>                                    <bsp-page-actions>                            <\/bsp-page-actions>                                                            <\/div>\n<div>\n<p>WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; President Donald Trump&rsquo;s plan to put weapons in space &mdash; pitched as a <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/golden-dome-missile-defense-trump-16cb94047bfdd7c2c55c5e099e40f74f\">&ldquo;Golden Dome for America&rdquo; missile defense program<\/a><\/span>  &mdash; is estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over a 20-year period, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, a far heftier sum than the <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/videos\/president-trump-makes-an-announcement-with-the-secretary-of-defense\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">initial $175 billion price tag<\/a><\/span>  he gave last year. <\/p>\n<p>The nonpartisan CBO report, published Tuesday, is described as an analysis that reflects &ldquo;one illustrative approach rather than an estimate of a specific Administration proposal.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The futuristic system was ordered by Trump in an executive order during his first week in office. He said then that he expected the system to be &ldquo;fully operational before the end of my term,&rdquo; which wraps up in January 2029. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;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,&rdquo; Trump said in his executive order, justifying the need for the missile defense system. <\/p>\n<p>The CBO&rsquo;s estimates are in part based on a lack of details from the Defense Department about what and how many systems will be deployed, &ldquo;making it impossible to estimate the long term cost&rdquo; of the Golden Dome system, the report says.<\/p>\n<p>The concept for the missile system is <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-golden-dome-israel-missile-defense-iron-da9f728b6849ebba968b4b456adb26ce\">at least partly inspired<\/a><\/span>  by Israel&rsquo;s multitiered defenses, often collectively referred to as the &ldquo;Iron Dome,&rdquo; which played a key role in defending it from rocket and missile fire from Iran and allied militant groups as it prosecutes the war on Iran alongside the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities able to detect, intercept and stop missiles at all major stages of a potential attack. <\/p>\n<p>Congress has already approved roughly $24 billion for the missile defense initiative through Republicans&rsquo; massive tax and spending measure signed into law last summer. <\/p>\n<p>Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, director of the Golden Dome project, testified last month about its costs. He told lawmakers that various groups estimating costs &ldquo;just take the cost of a legacy system and they multiply it out and they get these really large numbers and they say, well, that must be it. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That is not what Golden Dome is doing,&rdquo; the U.S. Space Force general said. &ldquo;We are laser focused on affordability.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who requested the estimate from the CBO, said in response to the report that the missile defense project is &ldquo;nothing more than a massive giveaway to defense contractors paid for entirely by working Americans.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Last May, the president said the Golden Dome would cost $175 billion. The CBO last year estimated that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-golden-dome-price-tag-cbo-4f18f4ae8f1ba232abc097277ad0367a\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; President Donald Trump&rsquo;s plan to put weapons in space &mdash; pitched as a &ldquo;Golden Dome for America&rdquo; missile defense program &mdash; is estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over a 20-year period, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, a far heftier sum [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}