From his residence in Mar-a-lago, the US president announced a new initiative to revive American naval power. Battleships armed with nuclear missiles, new ships and new collaborations with allied industries represent the Trump administration’s recipe for dominating the seas of the future. A high-level bet, which explicitly looks at the match with Beijing and the future of the United States as a global military superpower
24/12/2025
A renewed fleet, capable of deploying the most powerful ships ever and bringing the US Navy back to the glories of the past. This is the US administration’s plan to revive its shipbuilding industry and send a message to China and the Allies. The Golden Fleet initiative, announced at Mar-a-lago in recent days and immediately accompanied by a dedicated website, promises to simultaneously relaunch the national industry and US naval power within the next decade. But maybe not all that you call “Golden” is gold.
No sooner said than done
On the occasion of his (re)installation at the White House last January, Donald Trump he had dedicated part of his speech to the topic of shipbuilding. The American naval industry has been going through a phase of deep crisis for years now, mainly characterized by production rates below expectations, delays in deliveries, obsolescence of systems and lack of specialized workforce.
This adds to the US Navy’s chronic state of indecision regarding the future of its force structure. In recent years, more than one program has been canceled because it was considered – literally – a hole in the water, from the Littoral combat ships (LCS) to the Zumwalt class destroyers (produced in just three examples), not to mention the real procurement crisis regarding the future sixth generation embarked fighter – still known only as FA/XX -, whose tender increasingly takes on the features of a neverending story. Over the past year, among other things, Trump has repeatedly railed against the downsizing of American warships, lamenting how the United States once built large, “nicer” and fully armed ships. In other words, the so-called Battleships, similar to the Italian definition of Battleship. Now, dimensions and armament are right at the center of what, according to plans, will become the new spearhead of the American naval forces: the Trump class battleships.
La Trump class
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The new class of vessels that will lead the Golden Fleet will therefore bear the name of Trump himself. This does not mean that a USS Trump will be launched, but that the category of ships – and not individual vessels – will bear the president’s name, similar to the Gerald R. Ford-class supercarriers. Of the two ships already announced (out of an expected total of 20-25), it is known for example that the first will be launched under the name USS Defiant. As for the warship itself, we are talking about a real Goliath.
Tonnage estimated at 30 thousand to 40 thousand tons (more than double the Zumwalt), length of around 260 meters (almost as long as an aircraft carrier) and an impressive arsenal of armaments, including 128 vertical launch cells (VLS) for missiles of various types, 12 cells for launching presumably hypersonic missiles, laser weapons, a rail gun, above-deck artillery, anti-drone countermeasures and even systems launch platform for cruise missiles equipped with nuclear warheads.
Information regarding power and propulsion has not yet been released, but given the highly energy-intensive specifications of the on-board systems, the option of nuclear power cannot be ruled out, perhaps with new generation mini-reactors. In terms of its operational role, the US Navy speaks of an asset designed to project long-range offensive power, contribute to integrated air defense and act as a command and control hub. In this regard, it would appear that the Trump classes will be designated as flagships of the American fleet, a designation that from 1945 to today had been reserved exclusively for nuclear aircraft carriers.
An (also) industrial move?
There is no doubt that, beyond the announcements regarding the strength and prestige of the Navy, the Golden Fleet Initiative represents, in the administration’s plans, the key with which to force the relaunch of the Stars and Stripes shipbuilding industry. Such impressive announcements on a quantitative and qualitative level constitute in fact a guarantee of long-term employment for the industry, which hesitates to make the investments necessary to relaunch production out of its own pocket. This is also due to the aforementioned Navy about-turns on the technical specifications, which have messed up more than one industrial plan. Fincantieri knows something about this, whose contract for the construction of the Constellation class frigates was “remodulated” due to delays in deliveries. Delays which, however, perhaps have more to do with the continuous changes to the basic project requested by the US Navy than with the actual capacity of the group. Otherwise, it would not be possible to explain why construction rates in Fincantieri’s Italian plants have been increasing for years.
Built in America, but with others
Even if such an ambitious program succeeds in convincing the hesitant American shipbuilding industry to reach for its wallet, the issue of skills remains. Decades of slow decline and increasingly intense competition with the Chinese naval industry – especially in the field of civil shipbuilding – have left US shipyards short of specialized engineers and technicians. Hence the need declared by Trump to involve some selected allies in the program, such as South Korea. Of course, the plan provides that the jobs that will be created by this effort will have to be American, however the emerging data is that – at least for now – Trump does not intend to close the door to strategic partners.
A radical change of doctrine
On a purely military level, the Golden Fleet initiative goes in clear contrast to what was the idea of US strategic planners until now. In recent years, the US Navy has moved toward a distributed fleet structure, that is, a naval force composed of many low-to-medium tonnage assets. The reason is obvious: a numerically larger force serves to balance the constantly growing numbers of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (Plan) in an operational theater as vast as the Indo-Pacific one. An indispensable requirement to protect the precious aircraft carrier groups which (at least until today) represent the central core of the American naval forces. However, these reflections have not been completely set aside, so much so that the plans include the launch of new classes of frigates which, in addition to adding mass, should also provide the necessary air and submarine protection to future Battleships.
Then there is a crucial aspect which concerns the provision of equipping the Trump class with missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. Usually, the maritime arm of strategic deterrence is represented by submarines (the so-called SSBNs), which are entrusted with the task of threatening nuclear retaliation at any time, leveraging their ability to hide in the abyss even for long periods of time. In contrast, the position of a large surface ship such as the future USS Defiant will be constantly monitored by Chinese ISR satellites from the moment it sets sail. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that, rather than exercising strategic deterrence, nuclear battleships will represent tactical deterrents, designed to dissuade or respond to attacks against the ships themselves or naval groups as a whole. This is a radical change for a naval force that over the last eighty years has structured its composition entirely around the protection of aircraft carrier assets and embarked flocks. If in 1993 Bill Clinton stated that, in case of emergency, he should immediately ask where the nearest aircraft carrier was, now the Secretary of the Navy John Phelan he claims that “when there is a conflict, we will ask ourselves two questions: where is the aircraft carrier and where is the battleship?”.
A bet at high levels
There are two main warning signs regarding Trump’s golden fleet: the actual military utility and the industrial risk. Military analysts warn that, although more majestic, large tonnage and heavily armed warships represent easy targets, both to track and to sink, especially considering that today’s anti-ship armaments (aircraft and submarines) are designed to engage floating fortresses such as the Fords, whose displacement it is around 100 thousand tons.
Furthermore, concentrating such an amount of advanced weaponry on a single vessel risks leaving the rest of the fleet with no other option than to retreat in the event of the flagship’s sinking. Then there are doubts regarding timing and costs. In addition to the battleships, the Golden Fleet will include – according to what Trump said – new frigates, new agile ships and a new class of aircraft carriers (although the Ford class are just at the beginning of their life cycle). There are no official cost estimates yet for the entire program, but a quick examination of the stated objectives leads one to expect several tens – if not hundreds – of billions of dollars in research and development, design and actual construction.
In fact, such a program will take years to become fully operational, and analysts do not rule out that a future administration could decide to cancel everything, especially if costs were to skyrocket. on tour as in the past. If this were to happen, not only would the US Navy find itself back to square one – with a crippled fleet with an excessively heterogeneous structure – but also the federal budget could be heavily penalized.
How to read the move
The adjective “Golden” is not the only thing this plan shares with the Golden Dome, the space missile shield the United States has been working on for months. Both programs, in fact, represent the material transposition of the principle of “Peace through strength” on which the Trump administration has focused its strategic focus. The objective, clearly and repeatedly declared by the White House, is to ensure that the US Armed Forces remain the most powerful army in the world. From this perspective, if the Dome represents the shield that will protect the mainland American from any threat, the Fleet constitutes the spear that will allow us to continue to project power far beyond the Western Hemisphere.
(Photo: www.goldenfleet.navy.mil)
