President Trump announced on Monday a new class of battleships as part of the U.S. Navy’s “Golden Fleet.”
The president said that he approved a plan for the Navy to start construction of the two battleships, which will be equipped with guns, missiles, hypersonic weapons and high-powered lasers.
Trump trumpeted the ships as being built with “all steel” as opposed to aluminum.
Trump said the timeline of building the ships would be about two and a half years
When asked if the new class of ships is developed to counter China, Trump said they are intended to counter “everybody.”
“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump said standing alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a Mar-a-Lago public appearance.
The new battleships, which will anchor the “Golden Fleet,” will weigh more than 30,000 tons, and the military is expected to have between 20 and 25 as part of the effort to bolster the U.S. Navy.
The new vessels will mark an upgrade to the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
The first ship in the so-called Trump-class will be the USS Defiant, which will carry a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, according to Phelan.
The Navy secretary said the Defiant will be the “largest, deadliest and most versatile and best looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans.”
Last week, the Navy said it would commission a new class of frigates, part of the “Golden Fleet,” that will protect larger ships from surface vessels and fighter jets.
Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations, said in the Friday video that the U.S. small surface combatant inventory is at one-third of what the Navy needs.
“We need more capable blue-water small combatants to close the gap and keep our DDGs [guided-missile destroyers] focused on the high-end fight,” Caudle said.
