WASHINGTON D.C. — President Donald Trump in recent months referenced Michigan as potential home to the manufacturing of a space-based missile defense program for the U.S.
The potential project came into focus again earlier this week when Trump outlined concepts for the $175 billion “Golden Dome” missile defense program.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump this week said he expects the system will be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which ends in 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”
Trump, seated next to a poster showing the continental U.S. painted gold and with artistic depictions of missile interceptions, also announced that Gen. Michael Guetlein, who currently serves as the vice chief of space operations, would be responsible for overseeing Golden Dome’s progress.
More than once, Trump has said Michigan workers would play a role in the system’s manufacturing, although he did not mention the state during his Oval Office announcement this week. U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, of Indiana, at the Trump event said “Indiana is going to help you make it.”
Trump mentioned his plans for Michigan’s participation in creating the missile defense system as recently as a rally in Warren last month, when he celebrated his first 100 days in office.
The creation of a Michigan-built missile defense system also was a campaign promise for then-candidate Trump last year, when the Republican referenced the project as an “iron dome.”
“We are going to build the great iron dome, and it’s going to be made right here,” Trump told supporters during a May 2024 campaign rally in Saginaw County. He repeated the claim at a July 2024 rally in Grand Rapids.
Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they descend toward a target.
The Pentagon has warned for years that the newest missiles developed by China and Russia are so advanced that updated countermeasures are necessary. Golden Dome’s added satellites and interceptors — where the bulk of the program’s cost is — would be focused on stopping those advanced missiles early on or in the middle of their flight.
The space-based weapons envisioned for Golden Dome “represent new and emerging requirements for missions that have never before been accomplished by military space organizations,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, head of the U.S. Space Force, told lawmakers at a hearing Tuesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.