President Trump announced Monday that the U.S. Navy is going to build a new class of large surface combat ships to be named after him.
The “Trump-class” warships will anchor a new “Golden Fleet” in an expanded Navy, Trump said at an event held at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Navy Secretary John Phelan.
“As you know, we're desperately in need of ships. Our ships ... some of them have gotten old and tired and obsolete,” Trump said, adding that the new ship would be “100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.”
Although Trump referred to the new ships as “battleships,” they are expected to be an update to the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, currently the backbone of the U.S. fleet, with 74 in service. Despite being considerably smaller than the classic battleships of the World War II era, which the president referred to wistfully, the Trump-class warship will not be inexpensive, with an expected price tag in the billions of dollars per unit.
Trump said the Navy would start “almost immediately” with two ships in the Trump class, although no vendor has been named. The first ship of the class will reportedly be called the USS Defiant, to be followed by another 20 or 25 more, Trump said.
New frigates, too: The Navy announced last week that it also plans to create a new class of small combat ships as part of Trump’s effort to expand the Navy and bolster the nation’s military industrial base.
The announcement came soon after the Pentagon canceled a contract for a new generation of Constellation-class frigates, based on an Italian design, due to massive cost overruns and construction delays.
The new class of frigates will be based on the Coast Guard’s Legend-class National Security Cutter, built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. After Ingalls produces the lead ship, currently scheduled to launch in 2028, the Navy plans to work with additional shipyards to speed up production.
Questions about the Golden Fleet: Phelan said earlier this month that Trump had signed off on a plan to build more ships at a faster pace while expanding the nation’s shipbuilding capacity, something the president spoke about Monday while providing few details.
The effort involves a significant number of new ships, built around the large surface combatant armed with long-range missiles that Trump has reportedly referred to as a “big beautiful ship” — a new class that he is now naming after himself.
In addition, the fleet will include the new frigates and at least 49 new support ships, such as tankers. Phelan told The Wall Steet Journal that the White House would request funds from Congress for the fleet next year.
Some critics, though, are questioning Trump’s approach. Mark Montgomery, a former rear admiral with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative national security think tank, said Trump’s plan is “exactly what we don’t need” given the rising competition with China.
“That is not what these are focused on—they are focused on the president’s visual that a battleship is a cool-looking ship,” Montgomery said.
Bryan Clark, a naval expert with the Hudson Institute, told the Journal that the Navy needs more ships that can fire long-range missiles, especially for the purpose of defending increasingly vulnerable aircraft carriers, and it’s not clear that the new ship fits the bill.
“You need something like two-to-three times the size of an [Arleigh Burke-class destroyer],” Clark said, adding, “you need some ships with that type of size so that you can have the defenses to protect the carrier, and the reach to be able to attack targets from a place where you can be survivable.”