President Donald Trump's grand vision for the "Golden Dome" national missile defense system may cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars more than originally expected, according to a new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found that the system could cost $1.2 trillion to build and operate for 20 years.
The CBO conducted its analysis based on Trump's 2025 executive order directing the Defense Department to draft plans for a ground- and space-based system to detect and stop missile attacks. The CBO estimates that acquisition costs for the project "would total just over $1 trillion," with the space-based interceptor layer making up 70 percent of that total. Trump originally estimated the project would cost $175 billion and be "fully operational" by the end of his term, a timeline some say is unrealistic.
