Trump unveils ‘Trump-class’ battleships for US Navy’s ‘Golden Fleet’ 

United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to build a new “Trump-class” of battleships that he said would be larger, faster and 100 times more powerful than the biggest of any previous American-built warships.

Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday, Trump said the battleships would be part of a larger vision to create what he called a “Golden Fleet” that would help ensure US naval dominance.

The US president announced the plans while standing next to a rendering of the new ships, which appeared to have his image emblazoned on them.

“We had big battleships. These are bigger. They’ll be 100 times the force, the power [of the old ships], and there’s never been anything like these ships,” Trump said.

He added that the vessels would be “cutting edge” and equipped with the latest technology, including artificial intelligence and directed energy lasers. They will also be armed with hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles and rail guns – all technologies that are in various stages of development by the US Navy.

“Each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest battleship in the history of the world,” he said.

Trump downplayed the idea that the new ships were meant to counter any particular country, saying that they were “a counter to everybody”.

The US president said that production would start with two ships, but could scale up to 10, and as many as 25, over an unspecified period of time.

Trump said work on the first two would begin “immediately” and that the first ship would be named the USS Defiant.

Both Trump and Navy Secretary John Phelan spoke about the new Trump-class warship as a spiritual successor to the battleships of the 20th century, but historically, that term has referred to a very specific type of ship – a large, heavily armoured vessel armed with massive guns designed to bombard other ships or targets ashore.

This type of ship was at the height of prominence during World War II, and the largest of the US battleships, the Iowa-class, were roughly 60,000 tonnes. But after World War II, the battleship’s role in modern fleets diminished rapidly in favour of aircraft carriers and long-range missiles.

Trump referenced the Great White Fleet, commissioned by former President Theodore Roosevelt during the early 20th century as a symbol of US naval strength, as well as a documentary about naval warfare during the second world war.

“Victory at Sea. I don’t know if anyone has seen Victory at Sea, but it was a classic,” he said, adding that the new ships would help “maintain American military supremacy”.

According to a newly created website for the Golden Fleet, this new “guided missile battleship” is set to be roughly the same size as Iowa-class battleships, but only weigh about half as much, approximately 35,000 tonnes, and have far smaller crews – between 650 and 850 sailors.

Its primary weapons will also be missiles, not large naval guns.

Trump said the naval expansion would also be paired with renewed pressure on defence contractors to ‌speed up production and rein in costs.

He said he will meet with major defence firms next week to address delays and overruns, ‌and to examine whether executive compensation, stock buybacks and dividends ⁠are contributing to missed production targets.

“We don’t want to have executives making $50m a year, issuing big dividends to everybody, and also doing buybacks”, while production of F-35s and other jets languishes, Trump said.