&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "US shipbuilding a ‘mess,’ Trump’s Golden Fleet is the answer, says top aide")
US shipbuilding programmes are a “mess” and “behind schedule and over budget”, said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan on Tuesday (Jan 13) while outlining US President Donald Trump’s Golden Fleet initiative. Phelan said that revitalising the American shipbuilding industry was essential for restoring American maritime dominance over China.
Trump aide highlights ‘uncomfortable truths’
Speaking at the Surface Navy Association symposium, Phelan noted that “To be a superpower, you need a dominant military force, a robust economy and the ability to make things”.
“You cannot sustain global maritime power with a hollow industrial base,” he said, adding that the current US shipbuilding programmes were “a mess” and “behind schedule and over budget”. He then contrasted these “uncomfortable truths” with Washington’s “most consequential strategic competitor” - China.
Highlighting the manufacturing capabilities of China, he said that while Beijing has a manufacturing workforce of roughly 100 million, the United States has fewer than 13 million.
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“This is not a future challenge. It is happening now,” he insisted. Drawing parallels to the industrial mobilisation of the Second World War, he added that Washington must move to a “wartime footing”.
China wants to ‘dominate the Indo-Pacific’
Phelan noted that China’s leadership has been “explicit about their ambitions to dominate the Indo-Pacific, reshape the international order, and displace the United States as the world’s leading economic and maritime power”. He said that Trump’s Golden Fleet would address this disparity.
What is Trump’s Golden Fleet?
The Golden Fleet, unveiled by Donald Trump, features a new “Trump-class” battleship. According to Phelan, the fleet would be a “high-low mix” of naval platforms. That mix would span aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines, newly designed frigates, auxiliary vessels and a growing array of unstaffed and autonomous ships.
Describing the controversial ‘Trump class’ battleship as a “lethal, decisive response” to future conflicts, he pushed back against suggestions that such a vessel would be a nostalgic throwback. Instead, he said, the Trump-class battleship would be built for sustained fire, robust air and missile defence, and command capabilities for both manned and unmanned forces. “A ship built to not only swat the arrows but to kill the archers,” Phelan noted.
