WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump today announced the Navy would pursue a new class of “battleships” as part of the White House’s “Golden Fleet” concept.
“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump said at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. “Battleships are the largest, sturdiest and most heavily armed vessel built specifically for naval combat. While America has built many new warships over the years, they’ve tended to be smaller, much smaller, and not conducive to where we are and where we’re going — peace through strength.”
Trump, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also said the Navy would aim to quickly start building two battleships, but that the class could ultimately have between 20 and 25 ships. Photos on display on each side of Trump suggested at least one of the “Trump class” ships would be named “USS Defiant.”
The new “battleship” is planned to be around 30,000-40,000 tons — considerably larger than the Navy’s current fleet of destroyers — and capable of using a variety of future weapons, such as electromagnetic railguns and hypersonic munitions. Trump said the new ships would also carry nuclear-armed sea-launched missiles, creating what Navy Secretary John Phelan amounted to a new nuclear deterrent.
“These new battleships will stand as the centerpiece of the Navy’s Golden Fleet initiative and will be the first of its kind providing dominant firepower and a decisive advantage over adversaries by integrating the most advanced deep-strike weapons of today with the revolutionary systems of the years ahead,” the Navy said in a statement following Trump’s announcement.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported Trump’s plans, wrote that the Navy will launch a competition to find a vendor and plans to procure the first ship in 2030.
True American battleships were heavily armored to fight gun battles with a peer navy and have been consigned to history since the 1990s. In their place, modern, smaller destroyers are kitted out with state-of-the-art radars and interceptors that protect the aircraft carrier and its all-important air wing, as demonstrated by the numerous engagements against the Houthis in the Red Sea.
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In what could be a reference to the Red Sea engagements, Phelan said the new ship would carry the “biggest guns of our era” meant not to “swat the arrows” from the sky, but “reach out” and kill the archers. (When asked if he had China in mind as a potential adversary for the new ships, Trump said he did not, as he said he has a good relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.)
Both Phelan and Trump also suggested the ships would look good. Phelan said the ships would be the “largest, deadliest, most versatile and best-looking” modern ships, and Trump said he would personally be involved in their design, as he’s a “very aesthetic person.”
The notion of such a ship had been circulating publicly for several weeks, ever since Trump mused in September, “I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships, by the way.” Breaking Defense previously reported that analysts viewed the vessel as a big ask of the Navy’s already strained shipbuilding budget. Further, experts said the United States’ options for building this new ship are likely limited to two firms: HII or General Dynamics.
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The broader “Golden Fleet” concept would pair these offensive “battleships” with a myriad of smaller unmanned vessels and corvettes.
The announcement follows several major announcements from the Navy in recent weeks about the composition of its future fleet. Right before Thanksgiving, Phelan said the service would make a “strategic shift” away from the Constellation-class frigate, and only build two of what was once planned to be a 20-ship class.
In the following weeks Phelan then announced the Navy plans to begin building a new frigate based on HII’s Legend-class national security cutter. To expedite that ship’s procurement, the service also said it planned to find multiple shipyards to construct that vessel. Phelan said he expects the first ship of that class to be in the water by 2028.
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Trump also said he plans to meet with defense prime contractors in Florida next week. Up for discussion, the president said would be the need for more production plants to build F-35s as well as a number of practices around capital expenditures and executive compensation.
“We’re going to be discussing [capital expenditure] spending. We’ll be discussing the the pay to executives, where they’re making $45 and $50 million a year and not being able to build quickly. They’re going to make that kind of money. They have to build quickly,” Trump said. “And we’re going to be also discussing dividends. We want the dividends to go into the creation of production facilities.”
Trump also said he would bring up the issue of stock buy backs. “They spend so much money on buybacks, they want to buy back their stock. I don’t want them to buy back their stock. I want them to put the money in plants and equipment,” he added.