WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday announced plans to build new battleships for the first time in more than 80 years — and is naming them after himself.
The new ships will represent an upgrade to the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers — with the current models costing more than $2 billion apiece to build.
The shipbuilding will begin “immediately” and will take approximately two-and-a-half years to complete, the president said.
While the term “battleships” is commonly used to describe any kind of warship, the term technically refers to a heavily armored Navy ship armed with large guns and capable of serving as the command vessel in a naval attack campaign.
The US has not commissioned a battleship-class vessel since the USS Missouri in 1944. The previous US battleships were named after states.
President Trump will announce a new shipbuilding initiative on Monday afternoon. AP
“They will have 100 times the force, the power [of earlier warships], and there’s never been anything like these ships,” Trump said. “These have been under design consideration for a long time, and it started with me and my first term.”
The new class of battleships will be named the “Trump-class” and will be capable not only of attacking naval targets, but also will be armed with nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles — adding to the nation’s nuclear triad.
“These cutting-edge vessels will be some of the most lethal Surface Warfare ships,” Trump said. “Each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest battleship in the history of the world ever built.”
A drone view shows the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mahan docked in Ponce, Puerto Rico. REUTERS
While the Navy traditionally names ships after the first built in a series, the initial battleship will take the name USS Defiant.
It was not immediately clear how many of the new ships will be built, what new capabilities they might have or whether legislation will be required to finance the initiative.
There are 74 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in service — built beginning in the late 1980s, and they serve versatile functions including air defense, aircraft carrier escort and as a launch pad for Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The ship class is named after prominent World War II admiral Arleigh Burke, who survived two Japanese kamikaze attacks during the fight for Okinawa and later served as chief of naval operations to Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
The “Golden Fleet” branding leans into Trump’s inauguration-day pledge to usher in a new “Golden Age” for the country.
He has similarly branded a new missile-defense initiative the “Golden Dome” and gilded the Oval Office and Cabinet Room.
Trump was joined by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan at the shipbuilding announcement in Palm Beach, Fla., where he is spending Christmas week.