President Donald Trump has unveiled plans for the construction of two new battleships – named after himself – that he says will “inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world”.
Addressing the media at his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, the US president said that the new Trump Class of Navy battleships will begin with the construction of two vessels, but eventually expend to encompass between 20 and 25.
“They’ll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American ship building industry, and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world,” Trump said.
Although he did not use the term Trump Class in his remarks, renderings of the battleships at sea on display during the annoucement featured the name.
“They’ll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American ship building industry, and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world,” Trump said.
The Trump Class ships will form part of the new Golden Fleet that the president has ordered up for the Navy, meant to better counter China and other adversaries and to more closely adhere to Trump’s aesthetic standards.
“The US Navy will lead the design of these ships along with me because I’m a very aesthetic person,” Trump told reporters.
Fitted with “guns and missiles a the highest level,” hypersonic weapons, electric rail guns, cruise missiles and the “most sophisticated lasers in the world,” the new battleships will be the largest ever built, the president said.
They will each weigh between 30,000 and 40,000 tons, and will be built in the United States. “They’ll be very AI controlled,” he said, without explanation.
“We envision that these ships will be the first of a whole new class ships to be produced in the years to come,” he said.
Initially, the Navy will build two of the “Trump class” ships, quickly followed by eight more. Trump said he envisioned 20 to 25 of the vessels, which he said would become the “flagship of the American Naval fleet.”
Trump, who was joined by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the announcement, has previously complained about the look of some US ships.
“I’m not a fan of some of the ships you do. I’m a very aesthetic person and I don’t like some of the ships you’re doing aesthetically,” Trump told an assemblage of military brass gathered at Quantico earlier this year.
“They say, ‘Oh, it’s stealth.’ I say that’s not stealth. An ugly ship is not necessary in order to say you’re stealth,” he said.
The announcement comes as the US Coast Guard reportedly begins to step up efforts to interdict oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea as part of an escalating pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government.
The pursuit of a third vessel off the coast of Venezuela was confirmed on Sunday by a US official briefed on the operation.
The official, who was not authorised to comment publicly about the ongoing operation and spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that Sunday’s pursuit involved “a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion.”
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