US president’s US$185 billion missile defence shield to counter Chinese, Russian missile arsenals, a senior Pentagon official told Congress
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenYuanyue Dangin WashingtonPublished: 7:28am, 28 Apr 2026Updated: 7:36am, 28 Apr 2026The United States has “no defence against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles”, a senior Pentagon official told Congress on Monday, as US President Donald Trump’s US$185 billion Golden Dome missile shield faces continued scepticism.“The Golden Dome will strengthen deterrence by denying adversaries the ability to achieve their objectives through coercion or aggression,” Marc Berkowitz, the assistant secretary of defence for missile defence and deterrence policy, told a Senate hearing on Monday.Trump, a Republican president known for his fixation on outsize military programmes, proposed last year that the US build a space-based missile defence interceptor system and have it operational before the end of his second term in January 2029.
“We have no defence against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles today, [or] advanced cruise missiles,” Berkowitz said, when pressed on the urgency of the controversial project.
Trump’s Golden Dome shows US ‘obsessed with absolute security’, China says
