Trump’s Golden Dome: will the numbers add up to deter China in the Indo-Pacific?

Planned defence system could make it harder for PLA to strike US bases like those in Guam and Okinawa, or warships trying to defend Taiwan

Reading Time:7 minutes

Published: 6:00am, 1 Jul 2025Updated: 9:04am, 3 Jul 2025

America’s view of China as a “pacing threat” has shaped its defence priorities as the military seeks to maintain an edge over a rapidly modernising PLA. In the first of a three-part series on how US budget tensions will affect efforts to deter China, we look at the Golden Dome missile defence system.

China’s expanding military footprint in the Indo-Pacific is now a focus of America’s defence strategy, with a renewed emphasis on space-based capabilities since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Central to this is Trump’s ambitious bid to revamp the US Space Force and create a “next generation” missile defence system – the so-called Golden Dome.

Analysts say that if it gets built, the multibillion-dollar shield could bolster the US’ capacity to protect itself from long-range missiles while also deterring China’s military in the Indo-Pacific region, including in the event of a conflict near the Taiwan Strait.

But questions remain over the feasibility and cost of the project, which would rely on a network of satellites and space-based sensors to intercept missiles.

‘Signal to China’

The project was announced days after Trump was inaugurated in January, when he issued an executive order calling for an “Iron Dome for America” – borrowing the name of Israel’s vaunted missile defence system.

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How US under Trump 2.0 plans to combat China’s military strength

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