U.S. President Donald Trump has announced plans to sign an executive order for the development of an "Iron Dome" missile defense system.
On Monday, Trump spoke at a retreat for Republican lawmakers at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in South Florida, promising to strengthen U.S. military resources through executive action later that 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.
Source: Al Jazeera
BDST: 1030 HRS, JAN 28, 2025
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