U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested to local officials and media during a brief stopover on Guam on Thursday that a planned 360-degree missile defense system for the island could steer a massive new missile defense system for the continental United States.
"We're defending our homeland, we got the Guam defense system, which is a model for the Golden Dome, something President Trump has talked a lot about," Hegseth said, "we're going to learn a lot here, and also forward-deployed capabilities that need to exist on American soil," Hegseth said.
While on Guam, Hegseth met with Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, Guam Del. James Moylan and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Gov. Arnold Palacios.
According to a March 19 article on the Department of Defense website, "President Donald J. Trump told Congress and Americans the U.S. would pursue a Golden Dome, similar to Israel's Iron Dome air defense system, designed to protect against inbound missile attacks."
The article quotes Steven J. Morani, the acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, who said, "consistent with protecting the homeland and per President Trump's executive order, we're working with the industrial base and through supply chain challenges associated with standing up the Golden Dome."
"This is like the monster systems engineering problem. This is the monster integration problem," Morani said in the article.
"The acquisitions and sustainment community is focused on meeting the president's request for the Golden Dome while realigning also to meet Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's priorities," Morani added.
The Missile Defense Agency conducted the first-ever ballistic missile intercept from Andersen Air Force Base in December 2024, and similar tests are scheduled to continue for the next ten years, according to a final environmental impact statement released late last year.
Hegseth made the Golden Dome reference during a briefing at Andersen AFB's 36th Wing Headquarters.
He also said during a photo op that "these islands are the tip of America's spear in the Pacific. Guam and CNMI are vital parts of America and central to our defense mission. And I want to be very clear, any attack against these islands is an attack against the U.S.," Hegseth said.
Members of local media were allowed to attend, at the insistence of Leon Guerrero, but were ushered out of the room after Hegseth's short opening remarks, and instructed beforehand by military public affairs officials not to ask any questions.
Hegseth has been under fire by congressional Democrats for sharing, on the nongovernmental chat app Signal, some very detailed sensitive information hours ahead of a U.S. military attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The editor of the Atlantic magazine was inadvertently added to the chat, and later reported on the unintended access.
Hegseth has been outside the continental U.S. on his Indo-Pacific tour since the news broke of the controversial chat.
Hegseth went on to conduct a closed-door meeting with Leon Guerrero, Moylan, Palacios and top local military officials.
Shortly after his arrival on the base just past noon, Hegseth addressed troops at a packed Hangar 5 at the Andersen flight line.
"Unity is our strength. It's not where we come from. It's not what we look like, it's not what race we are, or what gender we are. What unites us is who we are, a shared purpose as Americans. Full stop. End of story," Hegseth told the service members from all branches of the military.
"We are in the business of warfighting. No other business. You are warfighters," Hegseth said.
"Nowhere is it more significant than out here in the Indo-Pacific, where you are at the tip of the spear," he said.
"We're not here to start war, but we're going to be strong so that we are able to deter war. My first platoon motto ever was, 'those who long for peace must come prepared for war,'" Hegseth said.
He closed his remarks with a story about his grandfather and his connection to Guam.
"Grandpa Milton, a man I never met, he died before I was born, was an ensign, a Navy ensign, right here on Guam. 1945 to 1946. In fact, he ran the commissary," Hegseth said.
"He came from a small town in Minnesota. He traveled from Norfolk, through the Panama Canal out to Hawaii, and then to Guam, and during the transit the war ended in Japan," he said.
Hegseth, who also went on a helicopter tour of Guam before meeting with the governors and the delegate, said, "We're building out the mission here in the hope of generations of peace on this absolutely beautiful island."
The Defense secretary was on Guam for approximately 5 hours, and left about 5 p.m. for high-level defense talks in the Philippines.