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OPINION — “The Navy and Coast Guard need to demonstrate that the approach to these [shipbuilding] programs is not a short-term deviation followed by returning to the long-standing business as usual approach. This is especially true for shipbuilding programs that require new designs, like the future [Golden Fleet Trump-class] BBG(X) battleship…For these and other future programs, fully leveraging the range of leading ship design practices -- like iterative design based on user feedback and robust, in-house ship design capabilities and digital tools -- will be critical to long-term success.”
That’s an excerpt from the prepared testimony of Ms. Shelby Oakley, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions, who appeared last Wednesday before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces in a hearing on the shipbuilding challenges facing the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.
Navy shipbuilding design was a central focus of GAO’s Ms. Oakley’s testimony last week. As she put it, “Improving ship design practices is one step that could help drive different outcomes on ship building programs. As I have testified in the past, both Navy and Coast Guard continue to move into construction before designs are sufficiently mature. That's a consistent pattern and it leads to predictable results -- cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance issues.”
I want to apply those words to the Trump-class BBG(X) battleship, which has been controversial since the President first disclosed it at a Mar-a-Lago press conference last December 22. At that time Trump said, “It's my great honor to announce that I have approved a plan for the Navy to begin the construction of two brand new, very large -- the largest we've ever built -- battleships.”
Taking credit for the idea, Trump said, “It started with me in my first term because I said why aren't we doing battleships like we used to? And these are the best in the world. They'll be the fastest, the biggest and by far -- 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.”
Trump went on, “I don't know if anyone's seen Victory at Sea [a famous documentary about World War II naval battles], but it was a classic. They'll [BBG(X) battleships] help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry and inspire fear in America's enemies all over the world.”
Trump added, “America's battleships have always been unmistakable symbols of national power. We stopped making them for whatever reason, I don't know.”
At that point, Trump congratulated his Palm Beach neighbor and friend, then-Navy Secretary John Phelan, saying, “He [Phelan] came to me -- the first day we met, he talked about battleships and I said you're absolutely on the right track. He said why are we doing other things?”
Trump continued, “The [BBG(X)] battleships are going to be armed just in terms of guns and missiles at the highest level. They'll also have hypersonic weapons, many hypersonic weapons, state-of-the-art electric railguns and even the high-powered lasers that you've been starting to read about. We have lasers where you aim the laser at a target and it just wipes it out. We're going to have…the most sophisticated laser in the world will be on the battleships that we're building.”
I must note that Navy hypersonic, laser and railgun weapons are still in development.
As if that were not enough, Trump added, “They'll also carry the nuclear arms to launch cruise missiles currently under development, which will be instituted pretty quickly. But they're under development and they've proven to be extremely lethal.”
Then Trump stated, “The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these ships along with me, because I'm a very aesthetic person, alongside our partners in American industry.”
Later, during a February 2026 speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, Trump said, “The new battleship that we have, which I've seen and helped design. I put a little more spirit in the hull, a little more -- give me a little bit more hull and give me -- I want that ship to look gorgeous.”
Although Trump last December said he had approved “a plan for the Navy to begin the construction” of two BBG(X) battleships, Naval News last week more accurately described that Mar-a-Lago announcement as an “initial concept debut” for the vessels.
Last Tuesday, Navy Secretary Phelan in a keynote speech at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space conference, opened by saying, “President Trump's Golden Fleet Initiative is not an aspiration. It is the framework by which we deliver decisive maritime power at scale. Under his leadership, we are making a generational investment in American sea power that represents the largest sustained ship building order since FDR urged American industry to build the fleet to win World War II.”
As for the BBG(X) battleships, the first currently set to be named the USS Defiant, Phelan described “Battleship strike groups [that] will offer commanders more war options than what exists in today's fleet.” The new battleship will integrate on board a “staff element for forward command and control, network unmanned systems, layered air and missile defense, directed energy, high-speed long-range strike [that] is designed to operate and prevail across all contested domains. They are built to fight and stay in the fight by sustaining fires, maintaining pressure, and outlasting any adversary.”
“But,” Phelan added, “high-end capability alone does not win wars. Wars are won by forces that can adapt faster than the adversary, that can iterate in real time and scale combat power without delay. That requires a true high-low mix, expanding presence without sacrificing producibility -- new frigates, small surface combatants, and fully integrated unmanned systems.”
On the sidelines of Tuesday’s Navy League Sea Air Space exposition, Phelan confirmed to reporters that the Navy is already in talks with vendors about the BBG(X) design.
“We have been talking to two different vendors as we speak right now,” Phelan said, “and then it’ll be a function of how we get through that design process with them, and then their capacity in their yards, what we think they can do, because we’re looking to really get moving on this and lay the keel in [20]28.”
At a Pentagon background session for reporters on the Navy’s fiscal 2027 budget last Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Budget, Rear Admiral Ben Reynolds laid out just how costly the BBG(X) battleship program will be, starting with research and development (R&D) for the battleship, which is already underway.
“I just want to say that we're already in this year, in [20]26, spending at least $134 million already in R&D for the battleship today,” Reynolds said, “as we try to really tighten and refine the requirements process. And I think we'll likely go to try to put more money into that [R&D] in [20]26 as well.” He later said it could be $100 million to $120 million more this year.
The fiscal 2027 Navy budget for the BBG(X) battleship has an additional $837 million in R&D, plus $1 billion for advanced procurement (AP), which is described as for long-lead materials and design work.
Reynolds said, “I think that the R&D work and AP that we do in [20]27 will be incredibly important. And I think through that very disciplined requirements process and then expanding the way we're building ships, I expect us to be able to start construction [on the first battleship] in [20]28. Remember, it's a battleship. It's a large ship, and so we will start construction in [20]28 and then work in construction through the next few years.”
Over the next five years, according to Reynolds, the Navy expects to spend $3.9 billion for R&D and $43.5 billion for actual shipbuilding, for what’s become a three BBG(X) battleship program. That means each BBG(X) battleship’s costs are expected to be $13 billion-to-$15 billion, roughly equal to each of the next three Ford-class aircraft carriers.
Phalen was fired as Navy Secretary last Wednesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with no reason given. President Trump told reporters a day later of Phalen, “He’s a very good man. I really liked him, but he had some conflict, not necessarily with Pete. He’s [Phalen’s] a hard charger, and he had some conflicts with some other people, mostly as to building and buying new ships. I’m very aggressive in the new shipbuilding.”
Politico last week suggested Phalen’s firing was related to his promotion of the Trump-class battleships, because Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg wanted “to pivot
toward smaller, cheaper uncrewed ships, according to the two people, who…were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.”
That got me thinking that there are other potential blockages to the BBG(X) battleship moving ahead, starting with the GAO’s Oakley’s testimony to the House subcommittee that “early design work helps you kind of stress out what it is you can and can't do.”
That echoed what the Chief of Navy Operations (CNO) Adm. Daryl Caudle said last week during a session with reporters at the Navy League event. Caudle picked up on the design issue saying that one of the “mistakes that we’ve done before, quite frankly,” is “we’ve started to build before the design is mature enough.” The CNO then added, “And we want to make sure that we’re at [sic] least a very, very high level – I won’t try to give a percentage, but you can think like 80% or more design – before the first weld is done.”
Since BBG(X) design work will continue for at least another two years, my bet is that none of these Trump-class battleships will ever actually be built.
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