The US President unveiled the new class from library at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago. Photo: AFP / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
President Donald Trump unveiled a new "Trump class" of Navy battleships, describing them as a superior war fighting vessel to replace an "old and tired and obsolete" US fleet.
"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 in revealing the new category of vessel from the library at Mar-a-Lago.
Flanked by renderings of the "Trump class" battleships at sea, Trump said he would take an active role in their design. The president made the announcement Monday afternoon in Florida with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also national security adviser. He didn't use the term "Trump class" in his remarks.
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 said.
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, Trump said.
They will each weigh between 30,000 and 40,000 tons, he said, 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 20-25 of the vessels, which he said would become the "flagship of the American Naval fleet."
He also said he would work to update American aircraft carriers as part of the "Golden Fleet" update for the US Navy.
Trump had 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.
Naming a class of ships after Trump could mean his name will also be affixed to an actual vessel - though such a move would likely be years away.
Each class of ships represents a new design and is traditionally named after the first ship of that design produced. If Trump designated the class with his own name and the US Navy followed that convention, it would mean the first ship built with the design announced by Trump on Monday would be the USS Trump.
However, posters at the event showed the ship named the USS Defiant.
The Navy announced Friday (local time) it would commission a new class of frigates, built in the United States, as part of the new fleet. Frigates are designed to protect sea lanes and protect larger vessels.
The announcement comes amid a massive US naval buildup in the Caribbean Sea as Trump applies pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, including attempts to cut off his oil revenues.
The Navy has been involved in a string of interdictions of oil tankers in the Caribbean, though the US Coast Guard has taken the lead in the operations. The US has intercepted two tankers off the coast of Venezuela this month, and on Sunday (local time), the Coast Guard was in "active pursuit" of the massive tanker Bella 1 after it refused to submit to US seizure efforts.
The status of the pursuit was unclear on Monday morning, but American officials said the fact that the tanker - which was empty and headed to Venezuela to load up on oil - turned around and is now sailing away from the country was itself a success.
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