The defense industry "empties" Trump: No money for the "deadly" ships he envisions

Last Monday, December 22, 2025, United States President Donald Trump unveiled plans for a new flagship of the "Trump-class" type, declaring that it will be "the fastest, the largest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any warship ever built." He hailed these ships as "some of the most deadly surface vessels," promising they would "help maintain American military superiority and strike fear into America's enemies around the world." However, there is a major problem: battleships have been obsolete for decades. The last battleship was built over 80 years ago, and the US Navy retired its last Iowa-class vessels nearly 30 years ago. While labeling the new vessels "battleships" may be technically inaccurate, defense experts argue that significant gaps remain between Trump's vision and modern naval warfare.

The criticisms

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), dismisses the idea, writing in a comment on December 23 that "there is no need for such discussion, because this ship will never hit the water." He stated that the program would take too long to design, cost far too much, and run contrary to the Navy's current strategy for distributed lethality. "A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship is even launched," Cancian said. Bernard Loo, a senior fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, called the proposal "a prestige project above all else." He compared it to Japan's super-battleships of World War II, the Yamato and Musashi—the largest ever built—which were sunk by carrier-based aircraft before playing a significant role in battle.

"Historically, we looked at warships and thought the bigger the better... [and] from a very simplistic strategic view, size matters. I mean, in reality, size doesn't always matter, but in this case, for the layperson, it does," said Bernard Loo. He added that the size of the proposed battleship—weighing over 35,000 tons and stretching over 840 feet, or slightly more than two football fields—would make it a "bomb magnet." "Its size and prestige value make it an even more attractive target, presumably for your adversary," Bernard Loo stated.

The comparisons

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, speculated that Trump might be drawn to the symbolic power of battleships, which were the most visible symbols of naval power for most of the 20th century. The USS Missouri, completed in 1944 and the last US battleship built, hosted Japan's surrender in 1945. Clark noted that the US Navy reactivated four World War II-era battleships in the 1980s as part of the 600-ship fleet expansion strategy during the Cold War to counter the Soviet Union. "This may be an era in which the president believes the US had its ultimate naval superiority." Battleships last saw combat in 1991, when the refurbished Iowa-class ships conducted shore bombardments to support coalition forces in the first Gulf War.

What’s in a name?

Clark mentioned that categorization matters less than the weapons a ship carries. According to the US Navy, the "Trump-class" battleship, which will belong to a new "golden fleet" of warships, will be equipped with weapons such as conventional cannons and missiles, as well as electronic railguns and laser weapons. It will also be capable of carrying nuclear and hypersonic missiles. Such a ship would essentially function as a large cruiser, regardless of whether it is called a battleship. However, Cancian of CSIS countered that such a design is contrary to the Navy's distributed operations model, which seeks to reduce vulnerabilities by spreading firepower across many units. "This proposal would go in the opposite direction, building a small number of large, expensive, and potentially vulnerable units," he wrote.

High costs

Even if the "Trump-class" proves technically feasible, analysts said cost would be the decisive obstacle. Loo said that US weapons programs often exceed timelines and budgets. The Navy's Zumwalt-class destroyers—the largest surface combatants today at 15,000 tons—were scaled back from 32 to just three ships due to excessive costs. Recently, the Constellation-class frigate program faced delays due to design and labor issues. Clark estimated that the cost of the "Trump-class" would be two to three times that of current cruisers. With Arleigh Burke destroyers costing about $2.7 billion each, this means a single battleship could cost over $8 billion—not including the massive cost of manning and maintaining it. The cost of staffing and upkeep would put more pressure on the already strained Navy budget, he added. Loo of RSIS was more critical in his assessment, calling the decision a strategic mistake. "At the very least, as far as I'm concerned, it is strategic arrogance."

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