TASS FACTBOX. On January 14, US President Donald Trump stated that Greenland is of strategic importance for building the Golden Dome missile defense system.
Golden Dome is a project to create a multi-layered missile defense system. Donald Trump raised the issue of developing it during his first presidential term (2017-2021), but these ideas did not go any further. He signed an executive order to create the new missile defense system on January 28, 2025, immediately after returning to the White House for a second term. During a joint presentation by Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on May 20, 2025, it was stated that this would be a defensive shield capable of intercepting threats from land, sea, air, and space, repelling missile attacks at all stages. According to Trump, this would be "completing the job President Reagan started 40 years ago" (the Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI; introduced in 1983 and phased out in the early 1990s), and completely eliminate the missile threat to the United States.
The project envisions the creation of a "system of systems" combining existing missile defense elements (silo-based GBI missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, ships equipped with the Aegis system and Standard SM-3 interceptor missiles) with advanced developments. The concept of the new system centers on the idea of continuous global surveillance—from ground-based radars to an orbital constellation of interceptor satellites. Trump stated that "next-generation technologies" from land, sea, and space would be used to create it.
