President Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile-defense shield could cost upwards of $1.2 trillion to develop and operate over 20 years, according to a new analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO cost estimate is far higher than those offered by the Trump administration. The director of the Office of Golden Dome for America has estimated that it would cost $185 billion to deploy the nascent system over 10 years, while the White House has requested $15 billion per year over the next five years to develop the project. Congress has approved roughly $24 billion for the project so far.
Lack of details: The huge disparity in cost estimates is likely due to the uncertainty surrounding the details of the project. The Department of Defense has not yet defined the overall architecture of the national missile defense system, making an objective cost estimate “impossible,” CBO said.
Guided by Trump’s “Iron Dome for America” executive order from January 2027, CBO analysts filled in the details for a system that would meet the requirements of a multi-layered missile defense system to develop their estimate.
The CBO’s analysis includes funding for four distinct interceptor layers, some of which will rely on existing systems like Patriot missiles, as well as a space-based missile warning and tracking system, some of which require extensive research and development. The acquisition cost is estimated to be roughly $1 trillion, with a space-based system for detecting and destroying enemy missile attacks accounting for about 70% of the acquisition cost and 60% of the overall cost.
Questions about effectiveness: Despite the considerable cost, CBO warned that its projected system, which would be “far more capable than defenses the United States fields today,” would not be perfect: “it would not be an impenetrable shield or be able to fully counter a large attack of the sort that Russia or China might be able to launch,” CBO said.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, the senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee who requested the cost estimate, has made his opposition to the project clear, saying in a joint letter last year that it would be “prohibitively expensive, operationally ineffective, massively corrupt, and detrimental to U.S. and global security by igniting a nuclear arms race with Russia and China.”
In response to the CBO analysis, Merkley said the Golden Dome would be “nothing more than a massive giveaway to defense contractors paid for entirely by working Americans,” adding that he would “continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to prevent another dime from flowing to this racket.”