The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has decided that the next great leap of the US Navy will also bear his personal signature. The current tenant of the White House announced this Monday an ambitious plan to build the Golden Fleetthe new generation of warships with which it has promised to reinforce the country’s naval supremacy and with which it also intends to revitalize its defense industry.
The project for the construction of the Trump class It starts with a budget of nearly 26,000 million dollars (approximately 24,000 million euros), in addition to the immediate start of work to make two large ships a reality, which would be followed by up to 25 ships in the coming years. The US president, from his private Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, has described his new war fleet as the “fastest, largest and, by far, a hundred times more powerful than any warship ever built,” Trump has proclaimed.
According to Trump, who will personally participate in its design “because I am a person very concerned about aesthetics”, its weight could be between 30,000 and 40,000 tons. In addition, they will have artificial intelligence systems, hypersonic missiles, electromagnetic cannons and directed energy laser weapons, although several of these technologies are still in the development phase, according to the US Navy itself.
The plan is not limited to new ships. It also includes the construction of three aircraft carriers, destroyers and at least twelve submarines, in addition to investments aimed at modernizing national shipyards. Trump defended the initiative as a way to create jobs and recover industrial capacity that, in his opinion, has eroded over the years. “During World War II we built four ships a day. What is happening now is a tragedy,” he said.
Image released of a new US warship.
But the announcement came accompanied by a direct warning to Defense contractor companies. Trump accused the sector of being too slow and announced a meeting next week with major manufacturers to speed up production timelines. He also threatened penalties for companies that accumulate delays or cost overruns.
The president was especially critical of compensation at the top of the military industry. “We don’t want executives earning $50 million a year, handing out big dividends and doing stock buybacks,” he said, while key programs like the F-35 fighter continue to accumulate delays. Reuters recently reported that the Administration is considering an executive order to limit dividends, buybacks and salaries on defense contracts that miss deadlines and budgets.
The announcement, however, occurs in a complicated context for the Navy. Just a month earlier, the Pentagon canceled a new light ship program due to delays and runaway costs. Other strategic projects, such as the Ford-class aircraft carriers or the Columbia submarines, have also suffered similar problems. According to AP, several of the technologies cited by Trump, including hypersonic missiles and electromagnetic cannons, are still under development.
Historically, the term “battleship” is associated with large gunships that reached their peak during World War II. After that period, its role was relegated to aircraft carriers and long-range missiles, until its final retirement in the 1990s. Trump, however, has on several occasions defended maintaining or recovering classic concepts and has shown reluctance to some naval modernization systems.
Image released of a new US warship.
The advertisement also consolidates an already known personalist pattern. Trump has repeatedly criticized the appearance of Navy ships, complained about visible rust on some vessels and acknowledged having had a direct hand in previous designs. The Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, even told the Senate that the president sent him messages at dawn asking about “rusty ships” or ships stranded in shipyards.
Accompanied at the event by the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, Trump presented the “golden fleet” as a strategic bet “against the entire world”, minimizing that the plan responds directly to China’s naval advance, although senior military officials have warned of the US industrial gap with Beijing.
Between public investment, pressure on contractors and an unprecedented personal involvement of the president in the design of the ships, the project places naval rearmament at the center of the White House agenda, at a time when the Navy continues to deal with structural delays and difficulties in fulfilling its programs on time and on budget.
