China, in his words · First term · № 66
Said a US 'super-duper missile' was far faster than what China was working on
“We have no choice. We have to do it with the adversaries we have out there. We have a—I call it the "super-duper missile." And I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now. ... And you take the fastest missile we have right now—you've heard Russia has five times, and China is working on five or six times. We have one 17 times.”
- Said
- , Remarks on the presentation of the United States Space Force flag, Oval Office
- Subject
- hypersonic missiles
- Threat
- Military threat
- Topic
- Veterans & military
- Era
- First term
What the record showed
On July 16, 2020 a senior defense official told CNN the '17 times' figure came from a March 2020 test of a hypersonic glide body 'where we flew 17 times the speed of sound.' CNN reported that the U.S. military was 'still several years away from fielding a hypersonic weapon,' with a target date of 2023 at the earliest, while Russia and China said they had already fielded such weapons and China had displayed its DF-17 at a military parade. On March 20, 2026, Stars and Stripes reported that the Army's Dark Eagle hypersonic battery had not yet received its first operational missiles and that the $12 billion program had faced development and testing delays.