United States President Donald Trump has announced he would sign an executive order calling for the construction of an “Iron Dome” missile defence programme.
On Monday, Trump addressed a retreat for Republican lawmakers at his south Florida golf resort, the Trump National Doral Miami, where he pledged to bolster US military assets with executive action later in the evening.
“We have to have a strong, strong defence,” Trump said from the podium. “And in a little while, I’ll be signing four new executive orders.”
The first, he explained, was to “immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defence shield, which will be able to protect Americans”.
Two more orders, he added, would be aimed at removing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and getting “transgender ideology the hell out of our military”.
A fourth order would also reinstate service members who were discharged for refusing to comply with mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. About 8,000 members had been discharged for that reason between August 2021 to January 2023.
Trump framed the actions as necessary to ensure the US has “the most lethal fighting force in the world”.
A flood of executive orders
Monday’s announcement marked yet another ripple in a tsunami of executive actions Trump has undertaken since returning to the White House on January 20.
According to officials, Trump signed a record number of executive actions on his first day in office, amounting to a total of 42 orders, memorandums and proclamations.
Many of those initial orders pertained to immigration and social issues. For instance, he made a move to end birthright citizenship, a constitutionally protected right that endows anyone born in the US with citizenship.
But some of his early executive orders overlapped with those unveiled on Monday.
He called for the end of government DEI programmes, which he accused of perpetrating “illegal and immoral discrimination”. And he signed another order declaring that male and female gender identities are “not changeable”.
But the latest raft of orders deals directly with the makeup of the US military and its strategic priority.
Monday’s orders, for example, echo a “transgender military ban” that Trump pursued in 2017, during his first term in office. That ban was later reversed by President Joe Biden in 2021.
An estimated 8,000 service members are transgender – though more may fear to identify themselves publicly.
The executive orders Trump unveiled also coincided with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first day at the Pentagon.
Hegseth, a veteran and former Fox News host, has previously railed against what he described as a “woke” ideology overtaking the military and questioned whether women should serve in combat roles.
As head of the Pentagon, Hegseth has pledged to oversee a vast overhaul of the military leadership and restore a “warrior culture” in the armed forces.
Hesgeth overcame allegations of sexual abuse and alcoholism to be confirmed to his post by 50 Republican senators on Friday.
Three Republicans, including former Senate party leader Mitch McConnell, opposed his nomination.
Building an ‘Iron Dome’
Trump’s executive order to build an “Iron Dome” fulfils a pledge the Republican leader made on the campaign trail.
The Iron Dome refers to a US-funded air defence system in Israel that detects and intercepts incoming rockets.
Trump had repeatedly described his desire to top Israel’s Iron Dome system in his campaign for re-election in 2024.
In an August broadcast on the social media platform X, he told billionaire Elon Musk he planned to build “the best Iron Dome in the world”.
And in July, he added the Iron Dome proposal to the Republican Party’s official platform.
But military experts have repeatedly questioned whether such a system is necessary, or even feasible, for the US.
The system used in Israel currently only protects against relatively low-power rockets and mortars. And Israel itself is only about the size of New Jersey, one of the US’s smaller states.
Experts say creating a similar system across the vast US mainland would be cost-prohibitive, not to mention possibly ineffective, given the advanced firepower of potential adversaries like Russia and China.
Observers also point out that the US already has missile defence programmes in place, including the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) programme.
The future of Trump’s Iron Dome project is also unclear, as it is all but assured to require funding appropriated by Congress.
“You know, we protect other countries, but we don’t protect ourselves,” Trump said on Monday.
“Now we have phenomenal technology. You see that with Israel where, out of 319 rockets, they knock down just about every one of them. So I think the United States is entitled to that.”