The United States has “no defence against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles”, a senior Pentagon official told Congress on Monday, as US President Donald Trump’s US$185 billion Golden Dome missile shield faces continued scepticism.

“The Golden Dome will strengthen deterrence by denying adversaries the ability to achieve their objectives through coercion or aggression,” Marc Berkowitz, the assistant secretary of defence for missile defence and deterrence policy, told a Senate hearing on Monday.

Trump, a Republican president known for his fixation on outsize military programmes, proposed last year that the US build a space-based missile defence interceptor system and have it operational before the end of his second term in January 2029.

The plan was initially priced at US$175 billion through 2035, but the US Space Force increased the estimate by another US$10 billion last month.

“We have no defence against hypersonic weapons or cruise missiles today, [or] advanced cruise missiles,” Berkowitz said, when pressed on the urgency of the controversial project.

“China is our pacing competitor. We will deter China from a position of strength with a denial defence along the first island chain,” he added, with other witnesses citing the rapid expansion of the Chinese and Russian missile arsenals.