President Donald Trump on Monday announced plans for the US Navy to build new “Trump-class” battleships that he said would be nuclear-armed and larger, faster and 100 times more powerful than the biggest of any predecessor.
Two such ships would be built to begin with, and up to 25 ultimately, as the US pushes to revive American shipbuilding through the promise of a "golden fleet". The first ship would be called the USS Defiant.
“We just wanted peace through strength. Hopefully we never have to use them, but there will never be anything built like these,” Mr Trump said, adding that the ships would be built using American steel and assembled by robots and humans.
A poster displayed at a news conference in his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida showed an artist’s rendering of the Defiant, with missiles and heavy gunfire bursting from its flat deck.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said the new battleships will carry nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles.
The ships will be “the biggest and most lethal ever” and mark “a generational commitment to American sea power across the entire [Defence] Department".
When asked if the new ships will be built to counter China, Mr Trump said they would serve as a “counter to everybody”.
“It's not China,” he said. “We get along great with China. I have a great relationship with President Xi [Jinping] and not China. It's just everybody. You don't know who comes along but we just wanted peace through strength.”
Amid a military build-up in the Caribbean before possible military action against Caracas, Mr Trump also said the US would keep the oil from the Venezuelan tanker that was seized on December 10.
“We're keeping it. We're keeping the ships also,” he said.
