Trump announces plans for a new Navy warship and ‘Golden Fleet’ : NPR

WASHINGTON – President Trump has announced a bold Navy plan to build a large new warship he calls a “battleship” as part of a broader vision for a “Golden Fleet.”

“They will be the fastest, the largest and 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump said during an announcement at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump said the ship, the first of which will be named USS Defiant, will be longer and larger than the Iowa-class battleships of World War II and will be armed with hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, rail guns and high-powered lasers – all technologies that are in various stages of development by the Navy.

The announcement comes just a month after the Navy scrapped its plans to build a new small warship, citing mounting delays and cost overruns, opting instead to use a modified version of a Coast Guard cutter it had been producing until recently. The Navy Service also failed to build other new ship designs, such as the new Ford-class aircraft carrier and Columbia-class submarines, on time and on budget.

Meanwhile, the Navy is struggling to implement some of the technologies Trump said will be aboard the new ship.

The Navy spent hundreds of millions of dollars and more than 15 years trying to place a railgun aboard a ship before finally abandoning the effort in 2021.

Laser technology has seen greater success in its adoption on Navy ships in recent years, but its use remains limited. One system designed to blind or disable drone sensors is now on board eight destroyers after eight years of development.

Developing nuclear cruise missile capabilities or placing them on ships could also violate nonproliferation treaties signed by the United States with Russia.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss current plans, told The Associated Press that design work for the new ship is underway, with construction expected to begin in the early 2030s.

Both Trump and Navy Secretary John Phelan have talked about the new Trump-class warship as a spiritual successor to the battleships of the 20th century, but historically the term referred to a very specific type of ship – a large, heavily armored vessel armed with powerful guns, designed to bombard other ships or targets ashore.

This type of ship was at the height of its popularity during World War II, and the largest of the American battleships, the Iowa class, displaced about 60,000 tons. But after World War II, the role of battleships in the modern navy quickly declined in favor of aircraft carriers and long-range missiles. In the 1980s, the US Navy modernized four Iowa-class battleships with cruise and anti-ship missiles and modern radars, but all four were retired by the 1990s.

According to the newly created Golden Fleet website, this new “guided missile battleship” will be about the same size as the Iowa-class battleships, but will weigh only half as much, about 35,000 tons, and have a much smaller crew of 650 to 850 sailors.

Its primary weapons will also be missiles rather than large naval guns.

Trump has long held strong opinions on specific aspects of the Navy, sometimes with the goal of preserving old technology rather than modernizing.

During his first term, he unsuccessfully called for a return to steam catapults to launch jets from the Navy's newest aircraft carriers instead of a more modern electromagnetic system.

He also complained to Phelan about the appearance of Navy destroyers and denounced that Navy ships were covered in rust.

At his confirmation hearing, Phelan told senators that Trump “texted me very late at night many times, sometimes after 1 a.m.” about “rusting ships or ships in the shipyard, asking what I was doing about it.”

During a visit to a shipyard that was working on the now-canceled Constellation-class frigate in 2020, Trump said he personally redesigned the ship.

“I looked at it and said, 'It's a terrible looking ship, let's make it look good,'” Trump said at the time.

He said Monday that he will also be closely involved in the design of this new warship.

“The US Navy will lead the design of these ships with me because I am a very aesthetic person,” Trump said.

Phelan said the new USS Defiant “will bring awe and reverence to the American flag whenever she calls at a foreign port.”