President Trump announced his plans for the 'Golden Dome', a national ballistic and cruise missile defence system. Photo / Getty Images
President Trump announced his plans for the 'Golden Dome', a national ballistic and cruise missile defence system. Photo / Getty Images
North Korea blasted United States President Donald Trump’s plans for a defence shield designed to track and intercept missiles, calling it a “very dangerous” and “threatening” move that could be used for offensive purposes.
The US plan is “a typical product of ‘America first,’ the height of self-righteousness, arrogance, high-handedand arbitrary practice,” the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
It raises security risks under the guise of a defence system, the Pyongyang-based institute reportedly said.
It “is an outer space nuclear war scenario supporting the US strategy for unipolar domination with the pre-emptive establishment of the outer space-based military substructure, not a ‘defensive measure’ to cope with the ‘threat’ from someone,” according to the report, citing a memorandum.
Trump announced last week that his Administration would proceed with a “Golden Dome” missile defence system that would use a constellation of satellites and space-based weapons to intercept attacks on the US.
Trump had been pushing the idea – akin to the Iron Dome system over Israel but also with weapons based in space instead of just on land – for months, citing increasingly sophisticated threats from countries such as Russia, China, and North Korea.
It could be operational within three years, before the end of his second term, Trump said in the Oval Office when announcing the plan.
“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space, and we will have the best system ever built,” he said.
Funding for the system was included in the budget Bill passed by House Republicans that is now being considered in the Senate.
North Korea has been rapidly upgrading and expanding its weapons arsenal under leader Kim Jong Un, who has called for the development of single missiles that can each drop several nuclear warheads. That technology would aim to overwhelm the missile defence systems of the US and its allies.
'Very dangerous': North Korea has rebuked the US defence plan. Photo / Getty Images
In June last year, North Korea said it had successfully tested three independently targeted warheads and a decoy. South Korea disputed the claim, saying the test was of a suspected hypersonic missile that had exploded and failed in mid-flight.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has criticised efforts by the US, Japan, and South Korea to co-operate more closely in the face of missile threats from Pyongyang.
The US has established Space Force units in Japan and South Korea, and the three countries launched an information system in 2023 to share real-time data for North Korean missile launches. Pyongyang criticised both initiatives.
“Clear is the aim sought by the US in its persistent attempt to build an integrated missile defence system with Japan and” South Korea, the state media report read.
North Korea also took a jab at the ballooning costs of the American commercial space industry, saying the Golden Dome plan and other missile-defence efforts are “the means of offering profits to ensure the constant boom of the US munitions monopolies”.
