Summary and Key Points: The proposed Trump-class battleship, the centerpiece of a visionary “Golden Fleet,” represents a radical departure from modern naval doctrine.
-Designed as a 30,000 to 40,000-ton command hub, the vessel is intended to field unproven technologies, including electromagnetic railguns, megawatt lasers, and hypersonic missiles.
Trump-Class Battleship. Image Credit: Creative Commons/White House Photo.
-However, critics argue the $15 billion-per-hull price tag—exceeding that of a Ford-class carrier—ignores the reality of China’s A2/AD “missile wall.”
-By concentrating massive firepower into a few large, vulnerable targets, the program risks creating expensive “bomb magnets” that are strategically mismatched against the distributed, unmanned, and stealthy threats of 2026.
Why the 40,000-Ton Trump-Class Battleship is the Most Controversial Plan in Navy History
China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) threat to the United States Navy’s surface warfare fleet is real—and getting more dangerous with each passing year. Arrayed across the First Island Chain (the territory that stretches from the Kamchatka Peninsula through Japan and Taiwan and ends in the Philippines), China’s A2/AD systems are specifically tailored to reduce the combat effectiveness of the Navy’s surface fleet, specifically America’s aircraft carriers.
China’s A2/AD Wall is Designed to Kill Big Ships, like Trump-class
In an age of increasingly sophisticated A2/AD, the Navy needs to plan to build smaller, more networked, automated ships that can operate underwater (such as large unmanned undersea vehicles).
Trump-Class Battleship. Image Credit: Creative Commons/White House.
Instead, President Donald J. Trump has announced his intention to have the Navy build for him something they haven’t tried to build since the Second World War: a battleship. Specifically, the new Trump-class battleship. Well, technically, it’s a battlecruiser. But, Trump and his comrades-in-arms have been billing their new Trump-class battleship as the great silver bullet in America’s otherwise declining Navy.
It’s part of Trump’s grander vision of creating “The Golden Fleet.”
Enter the Trump-class: Return of the Golden Fleet
The ship itself is going to be massive.
At around 30,000-40,000 tons, the Trump-class is set to be larger than the current destroyers in America’s fleet. According to the ship’s advocates in the Pentagon, the Trump-class could eventually carry hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, lasers, and railguns. Further, the Pentagon asserts that the Trump-class will have more than 100 missile launch cells and the capability to deploy directed-energy weapons (DEW).
Trump-class “battleships” are designed to behave as a command-and-control hub for manned and unmanned systems. President Trump wants a fleet of roughly 20-25 of these warships built, at an estimated cost of around $10-$15 billion per ship (that’s more expensive than the vaunted new Ford-class aircraft carriers).
So, the Trump-class is extremely expensive per hull.
Trump-Class Battleship USS Defiant. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
This system combines many emerging technologies at once (many of these technologies are not just emerging; they’re still very early in their development and therefore unreliable and not yet scalable). In fact, integrating these more fanciful-sounding technologies could delay or cripple the program, as they are not yet scalable and have not been fully tested in combat settings.
Essentially, the new Trump-class is far too ambitious and too expensive to execute smoothly.
Battleships in the Missile Age…
It is clear that this project is less about defending US national security and more about feeding the narrative. The Pentagon is so intent on giving the Trump-class science-fiction-like capabilities that the Navy may never be able to deliver on either the ship or the underlying technologies.
Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic & International Studies calls the program beyond unrealistic. He rightly suggests that the entire proposal will not survive the political process. The performance levels that the ship’s designers are claiming are beyond extraordinary.
They’re unlikely to ever be achieved.
Iowa-Class Battleship Firing 16-inch Guns. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Copy negative of the US Navy (USN) Iowa Class (as built) Battleship USS NEW JERSEY (BB 62) firing a 21-gun broadside. Exact date shot unknown. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Iowa-Class Battleship USS Iowa. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The costs of this warship will be immense. They already are exorbitant. Oh, and the Trump administration has yet to secure the funding for this project. No serious procurement path exists.
The Trump-class Battleship Looks Useless in 2026
For all the ra-ra about the Trump-class “battleship” being so advanced and powerful, no one pointed out to the president that battleships in modern naval warfare are utterly useless. Particularly in the age of A2/AD, where the concentration of naval power in a handful of huge warships, like the Trump-class.
This program reflects nostalgia or symbolism more than anything else.
A Technological Wish List, not a Warship
President Trump’s namesake faces three massive obstacles. First, it’s a technological fantasy with a very real taxpayer-provided budget. Railguns, megawatt lasers, and nuclear cruise missiles are not all operational together.
Second, the strategic doctrine is all skewed.
After all, modern naval warfare favors distributed, networked, and often unmanned fleets—not giant capital ships, like the proposed Trump-class.
Third, with so many Americans fed up with the overall spending, the idea that any group of Americans would really support the initiation of another expensive project, like the Trump-class, is laughable.
Nostalgia is No Way to Run a Navy
The Trump-class “battleship” is less a weapon for the wars America is likely to fight than it is a monument to how America’s once imagined naval power worked. While China builds dense missile networks designed to hunt and kill large surface ships, like the proposed Trump-class.
Yet, effective strategy demands adaptation, not nostalgia.
If America were serious about winning in the A2/AD world, it must invest in the distributed, stealthy, and unmanned systems of the future, not resurrect budget-busting capital ships that would be easily sunk by Chinese A2/AD systems. Not when much cheaper Chinese A2/AD networks could easily overwhelm whatever defenses might be placed on these warships for pennies when compared to what the Trump-class will cost the American taxpayer.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is the Senior National Security Editor at 19FortyFive.com. He was previously the senior national security editor at The National Interest. Weichert is the host of The National Security Hour on iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern. He hosts a companion show on Rumble entitled “National Security Talk.” Weichert consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. His writings have appeared in numerous publications, among them Popular Mechanics, National Review, MSN, and The American Spectator. And his books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. Weichert’s newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.
