President Donald Trump has announced plans for a new “golden fleet” of battleships - named after himself.
Fresh from rebranding the Kennedy Center last week, Trump - who has put his name on everything from steaks and vodka, to a “university” - unveiled his latest vanity project on Monday: a “Trump class” battleship known as the USS Defiant.
“These are the best in the world,” he said, flanked by renderings of the new fleet.
“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.”
The new ship will also have the ability to add future weapons such as electromagnetic rail guns and directed energy laser weapons.
Trump, 79, said the plan would involve the Navy initially building two ships, which he would personally help design “because I’m a very aesthetic person.”
But the Navy would eventually scale up to 10 ships, he claimed, and ultimately “we think it’s going to be anywhere from 20 to 25 of these.”
However, such targets seem highly ambitious, given the U.S. shipbuilding industry consistently struggles with workforce shortages, supply chain issues, and capacity limitations.
It also needs substantial investment to meet future demands, and experts have repeatedly warned that this demand has only grown as China’s navy has overtaken the U.S. fleet in terms of size, due to the nation’s blistering pace of ship production.
Asked how the administration would ensure there was enough workforce capacity to build his new fleet, Trump replied: “We’re going to have robots helping us.”
But Democrat Congressman Joe Courtney, who sits on a congressional subcommittee that oversees the Navy, was skeptical.
“Today’s vague proposal to bring back battleships raises many questions for Congress to scrutinize,” said Courtney, the ranking member of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.
“There is a reason that the Navy stopped building battleships in 1944 and that President Ronald Reagan’s 600 ship fleet, and even President Trump in his first term, did not choose to build large vulnerable battleships whose range is questionable.”
Trump made the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, 45, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 54, and Navy Secretary John Phelan, 61.
The plan was the latest sign of the president putting his mark on America’s cultural and political fabric.
Since coming to office, he has turned the Oval Office into a gold-tinted shrine to himself, unveiled plans for a $400 million ballroom, and proposed building a large triumphal arch in Washington, dubbed by media as the “Arc de Trump.”
Last week, his name was also added to the D.C. institution formerly known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
But Trump has long advocated a revamp of America’s fleet of warships, which he has said are “terrible-looking” and outdated.
The new fleet will be an upgrade to the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which are the staple of the current fleet.
“The future Trump-class battleship, USS Defiant, will be the largest, deadliest, most versatile and best looking warship anywhere in the world’s ocean,” Phelan said.
Trump’s latest announcement came amid a large U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean Sea as the administration moves to pressure Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
Two oil tankers have been intercepted off the coast of Venezuela this month, and on Sunday, the Coast Guard pursued another tanker after it refused to submit to U.S. seizure efforts.
