US President Donald Trump, while discussing plans to build a "Golden Dome" to defend US territory in North America, claimed that the technology behind Israel’s Iron Dome is “entirely American” during an address at the Davos World Economic Forum on Wednesday.
"I told Bibi to stop taking credit for the dome," he declared, adding, "That’s our technology, that’s our stuff."
“What we did for Israel is amazing, but that’s nothing compared to what we have planned for the United States, Canada, and the rest of the world,” he said.
“We are going to build a dome like no other. We did it for Israel,” he noted.
“They did a good job, and they wiped out the Iranian nuclear threat as nobody could ever believe,” he added.
What is the Golden Dome project?
Trump announced the Golden Dome in May, stating at the time that the US helped Israel with the Iron Dome, but that Washington has more advanced technology than Israel does.
The system is estimated to cost $175 billion, Reuters reported in August, after seeing a Trump administration slide presentation on the project.
The US military’s Space Force awarded about six small contracts to Northrop Grumman, True Anomaly, Lockheed Martin, and Anduril to build competing missile defense prototypes, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters in November.
Additionally, on Wednesday, Trump said it should be known within three weeks whether Hamas will agree to give up its weapons and threatened action if the group does not.
“That’s what they agreed to. They’ve got to do it. And we’re going to know ... over the next two or three days – certainly over the next three weeks – whether or not they’re going to do it,” Trump said in a question-and-answer session following his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“If they don’t do it, they’ll be blown away very quickly. They’ll be blown away.”
Reuters contributed to this report.