By Jeff G. Gilmour, 11 January 2026
In December 2025, President Trump announced that two new battleships were to be built in the United States – what he’s calling the “Trump Class”.[1] This announcement came despite the fact that US naval shipbuilding programs have fallen short on delivering new warships on time and on budget in recent years.
The new warship would be approximately 880 feet in length with a displacement of about 30-40,000 tons. It would be the largest surface combatant the United States has constructed since WW II. The Iowa-class battleships, such as USS Missouri, were 887 feet in length at around 58,000 tons displacement. Aside from aircraft carriers, the biggest warship in the US Navy fleet currently is the Zumwalt destroyer at 15,000 tons. It is envisioned that the new ships’ armament would include 12 cells for cruise missiles, 128 vertical launch cells for Tomahawk cruise missiles, rail guns and laser defence weapons. Currently there are no timeframes for the design and building phases for the new ships and no contractor has been identified to actually construct the battleship.
The President stated that these new battleships were intended to replace the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers which are the backbone of the US surface fleet and cost approximately $2B. Each of the new battleships could cost in excess of $15B.
The US Navy shipbuilding program has not been a lesson in excellence, based on-time of delivery and cost overruns. The following are a few illustrations:
- The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford took 12 years to build, from the cutting of steel in 2005 to the commissioning of the ship in 2017;
- The Zumwalt-class destroyer program began in the 1990s, and 32 were planned to be constructed, however only three were actually built. The program was cut short due to massive cost overruns and shifting strategic priorities. The last of the class, USS Lyndon B. Johnson was commissioned in 2017;
- Twenty Constellation-class frigates were planned to be built. In June 2025, the US Navy Secretary John Phelan told a US House hearing: “All our programs are a mess. I think that our best ship built is six months late and 57% over budget - and that is our best one.”[2] In November 2025 he axed the Constellation-class frigate program, which was already three years behind schedule;
- The Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) had a very turbulent track record, which was fraught with controversy from the very start.[3] There are a number of questions surrounding reliability, and what the mission of the ships was supposed to be. In 2013-14 the planned requirement for these ships was reduced from 55 to 32 vessels. In a Global Outline Agreement (GOA) report reflecting on the fiscal year 2019, the US Navy was noted to have spent more than $28 billion to develop and build 32 ships.[4]A good number of the LCS will be retired early.
- The Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, USS John F. Kennedy, is two years behind its delivery date, which was supposed to be July 2025.
A former US Navy Captain, Carl Schuster, stated: “We no longer have the shipbuilding and maritime infrastructure to build the battleships quickly. New shipyards have to be built or closed shipyards activated.”[5] Schuster also remarked that the management of Navy’s shipbuilding programs has to change from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). He suggested that the President must clean house if he wants any shipbuilding program to succeed.
When it comes specifically to the building of two “Trump-class” battleships for the US Navy, I suggest the following issues should be considered:
- Instead of building two battleships in a new class, could the USN reactivate the old Iowa-class battleships? USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin were both used in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. They were modernized to include Tomahawk missiles in the 1980s.[6]
- As a result of the Ukraine War, it is clear the surface fleet has become a target for hypersonic missiles and drones. As a result,1,000 foot long aircraft carriers and battleships could certainly be considered major targets by an enemy force at sea. For example, the PLAN has developed an intermediate range ballistic missile, the DF-26 nicknamed the “carrier killer”. China has disclosed it has also developed effective undersea drones as well as advanced hypersonic missiles fired from submarines or surface ships.
- There are ongoing deliberations by both the United States and Canada about whether to acquire ships off-the-shelf from foreign countries such as South Korea. Though Canada has three shipyards building ships pursuant to the National Shipping Strategy (NSS), similar to the situation in the United States, delivery of ships is both late and over budget. It is difficult to compete with Asian shipyards in the delivery of new warships based on shipyard capacities, workforce and labour costs.
From the Canadian perspective, the Mark Carney government has established the Defence Investment Agency with the hope of at least centralizing expertise and cutting red tape in the procurement of military equipment.[7] It will not however, address the fundamental questions concerning North American shipyards of capacity, workforce availability and increasing costs for each significant shipbuilding program.
Based on the cost overruns and delays in US shipyards building their current service fleet, it will be difficult to forecast when the two “Trump-class” battleships will ever form an integral part of the US Navy.
[1] CNN, B. London, “Trump’s new battleship plan could transform the US Navy - or sink it”, December 23, 2025.
[2] AI Overview
[3] Navy News, L. Heckmann, “Littoral Combat Ship still fighting to prove its worth”, 26 March, 2024.
[4] See footnote 1.
[5] See footnote 1.
[6] AI Overview
[7] Government of Canada, October 2, 2025.
Image: An infographic illustrating the Trump class "battleship" weapons. Credit: USN
