Trump Announces New ‘Trump Class’ of Warships

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The president said development of the vessels would help maintain military superiority and improve the industrial base, but analysts suggested they were the wrong approach to current threats.

Published Dec. 22, 2025Updated Dec. 23, 2025, 12:53 a.m. ET

President Trump announced on Monday the construction of a new “Trump class” of warships that would anchor what he called a “golden fleet” for the U.S. Navy, fulfilling a long-held goal to give a personal makeover to a fleet of ships he described as “old and tired and obsolete.”

The ships will augment the Navy’s more than five dozen Arleigh Burke-class destroyers — 9,000-ton vessels that are currently a mainstay of the Navy fleet but that Mr. Trump has disparaged as failing to compete with the vessels of foreign fleets, according to a Pentagon official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans for the ships.

Navy officials said that the new vessel, which Mr. Trump described as “a battleship,” would displace more than 35,000 tons — more than twice the size of the largest surface combatant ships the Navy currently fields — and that it would notionally have the ability to launch hypersonic missiles and nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and carry more munitions overall than current Navy vessels.

“They’ll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world,” Mr. Trump said alongside renderings of the new ships.

Illustration of two posters on easels, each showing a "TRUMP CLASS USS DEFIANT" warship. One fires missiles; the other sails near a statue.

Dating back to his first term, Mr. Trump has criticized the look of the Navy’s fleet and called for a return of the World War II-era vessels that were armed with 16-inch guns that were largely phased out for aircraft carriers whose warplanes could strike targets many hundreds of times farther away. In ordering up the construction of battleships, Mr. Trump appeared to once again nod back to vessels of old under the umbrella of an agency he calls the “Department of War,” even though Congress has not changed the name of the Department of Defense.