US President Donald Trump unveiled the brand new naval “Golden Fleet” of battleships at a briefing from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Seaside, Florida, on Dec. 22, 2025. (Reuters/Yonhap)
US President Donald Trump held a press convention at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on Dec. 22, 2025, to announce a brand new class of naval vessel that he dubbed the “Golden Fleet.” This event served not solely as an announcement of the plan to assemble new naval vessels, but additionally as a declaration of his intent to make sure US maritime supremacy and broaden American territory.
“Every one in every of these would be the largest battleship within the historical past of our nation; the most important battleship within the historical past of the world ever constructed. It’s 100 occasions extra highly effective than the earlier Iowa class,” he stated on the time.
Trump’s boast could really feel exaggerated, however the information launched by the US Navy exhibits that the 35,000-ton deliberate battleship is greater than double the dimensions of the most important class of destroyer, which has a displacement of round 15,000 lengthy tons.
The ship can be geared up with hypersonic missiles, electrical railguns and high-powered lasers, so his confidence is well-founded. The president personally dubbed the battleships as a part of the “Trump class” of vessels. Becoming, as his motto has been “peace by way of power.”
“[These battleships will] assist preserve American navy supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding business and encourage concern into America’s enemies all around the world,” he emphasised. He additionally stated that the US would, for the primary time since 1994, begin to assemble battleships to permit the nation’s Navy to experience its former glory, mentioning President Theodore Roosevelt’s Nice White Fleet and the legendary USS Missouri, which performed a pivotal function in World Struggle II.
The solutions given in response to reporters’ questions after the press convention had been something however delicate. Trump brazenly projected navy energy to different international locations, mentioning Venezuela, Colombia and Greenland by title. He acknowledged that it could be “good” for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to step again from energy, whereas saying that Colombian President Gustavo Petro ought to “watch his ass” as Colombian drug factories “make cocaine” and ship it to the US.
Trump additionally added that the crackdown on medicine, which began at sea, can be continued on land, and that each one international locations in Latin America can be topic to such operations, increasing the scope of Washington’s navy operations to embody Latin America and the Caribbean.
Concerning Greenland, Trump talked about that the issue of buying Greenland was associated to “nationwide safety” points, stating, “In case you check out Greenland, you lookup and down the coast, you will have Russian and Chinese language ships in all places. We’d like it for nationwide safety.”
Within the early hours of Jan. 3, the US deployed particular forces to Venezuela, arresting the Venezuelan presidential couple and extraditing them to New York. Trump’s rash habits prompts many issues — perhaps he’ll try to not solely broaden US territory to incorporate Latin America, but additionally to Greenland. That is the context through which we see Trump clearly placing an emphasis on strengthening the US Navy.
The specter of Roosevelt and Mahan?
Trump’s plan for the Golden Fleet and expansionism harkens again to Roosevelt’s push to strengthen US naval energy within the twentieth century and his expansionist insurance policies. Roosevelt is the determine most chargeable for reorienting US diplomacy from isolationism to expansionism. He started the development of the Panama Canal and laid the inspiration for a US naval hegemony by way of navy intervention in Latin America and forays to East Asia.
A former undersecretary of the US Navy, Roosevelt believed {that a} robust maritime drive was important for the US to safe worldwide energy. The US Navy did certainly turn out to be the second largest navy on the planet after the UK throughout Roosevelt’s time period.
The Nice White Fleet talked about by Trump is a major legacy left by Roosevelt. Roosevelt ordered the formation of a fleet of 16 US Navy battleships to circumnavigate the globe and go to 60 harbors in Asia, Europe and South America from 1907 to 1909. Painted in white and adorned with gold ornaments, the group of vessels was dubbed the “Nice White Fleet.” Roosevelt needed to impress upon the world the prowess of the US Navy whereas additionally holding tabs on Japan, which was trying to unfold its affect in Asia.
Roosevelt is greatest identified for his aphorism, “Communicate softly and carry a giant stick.” The Nice White Fleet is an effective instance of 1 such “huge stick.” Trump’s option to say that the brand new fleet will “encourage concern in America’s enemies all around the world” appears to be an try to emulate Roosevelt.
Roosevelt’s ideology was additionally affected enormously by US Navy strategist Alfred Mahan. James Stavridis, a retired US Navy admiral, as soon as commented that Mahan was Roosevelt’s “mental mentor.” In his ebook, “The Affect of Sea Energy upon Historical past,” revealed in 1890, Mahan posited that management over the ocean was what determined the rise and fall of sure powers, placing ahead a mannequin of maritime imperialism that depends on robust fleets and an intensive international community.
He contended that England, a small island that lacks pure assets, managed to broaden its management over the world by asserting energy at sea by way of its hefty naval energy and growing colonies, arguing that the US ought to observe in these footsteps.
“England’s naval bases have been in all components of the world; and her fleets have without delay protected them, stored open the communications between them, and relied upon them for shelter,” Mahan wrote, putting clear emphasis on large, highly effective fleets. The Nice White Fleet was the embodiment of that imaginative and prescient.
Greater than a century later, Trump’s Golden Fleet appears to be taking on the mantle left by Roosevelt and Mahan. “It’s a counter to everyone, it’s not [only] China,” Trump commented throughout the press convention, emphasizing how the US “simply needed peace by way of power.”
Trump is concurrently contemplating the growth of management over Latin America and the Caribbean, acquiring the North Pole and Greenland, and countering China. Within the Western Hemisphere, one wants a robust navy if one desires to mission navy energy within the title of waging a warfare in opposition to medicine.
If a contingency occurs within the Taiwan Strait, the ocean could turn out to be the principle battleground. China at present has the world’s largest maritime drive, with 234 working warships in comparison with the US’ 219. 70% of Chinese language warships had been launched after 2010, whereas solely 25% of US vessels had been, placing China better off. This case mirrors what occurred on the finish of the nineteenth century, when Germany’s growth of its fleet put England on its toes.
The propriety of an enormous battleship
US Navy strategists have had so much to say about Trump’s Golden Fleet. Whereas many agree with the significance of bolstering US maritime forces, specialists are divided on whether or not an enormous battleship is what the nation wants.
Bryan Clark, the director of the Middle for Protection Ideas and Expertise on the Hudson Institute, who participated on this US Navy mission, argues {that a} large battleship is required to strengthen the protection capabilities of plane carriers.
In an interview with The Wall Road Journal, Clark acknowledged that fashionable battleships are geared up with long-range missiles, relatively than huge weapons, noting how necessary it was for contemporary battleships to have stronger firepower — extra missile launchers and working capabilities for hypersonic weapons. To take action, the US Navy wants greater warships, ones greater than the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (9,000 tons).
However, Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research’ Protection and Safety Division, argues that it’ll “take years to design, value $9 billion every to construct, and contravene the Navy’s new idea of operations, which envisions distributed firepower. A future administration will cancel this system earlier than the primary ship hits the water.”
The distributed firepower technique is a technique of maximizing firepower by deploying property in a widespread approach whereas nonetheless holding them carefully linked by way of a community by coordinating a large number of assorted sensors and weapons methods. Cancian’s competition is that gargantuan battleships may show a legal responsibility of their vulnerability to assault in in the present day’s circumstances at sea, the place community connectivity and the power to function distributed autonomous unmanned methods are essential.
Recognized for its navy and safety insights, the conservative-leaning CSIS Protection and Safety Division is a suppose tank that by all accounts serves as a pillar of the military-industrial complicated, which makes it relatively exceptional that it has come out so vocally in opposition to the technique put forth by the present sitting president. This implies that there’s greater than a bit of pushback throughout the US Navy itself. But the dedication proven by Trump and the highest brass means that the Golden Fleet mission gained’t disappear any time quickly.
Weaknesses in Trump’s technique from the angle of Mahan
Mahan proposed three pillars required to be a maritime energy: international connectivity with productiveness by way of worldwide commerce, maritime transport capabilities encompassing service provider ships and warships, and securing maritime strongholds by way of colonial or alliance networks. In brief, maritime power is outlined not by the variety of warships one has — or how huge they’re — however by the mixed power of commerce, business and alliance networks.
These three areas are exactly the place Trump’s technique fails.
Trump has eroded the idea of worldwide commerce by way of a return to commerce protectionism and America’s shipbuilding business is almost nonexistent. On prime of that, commerce conflicts with key allies are consuming away on the cohesion of maritime networks. Given these structural constraints, it’s unclear whether or not the mission to bolster US naval energy that revolves across the Golden Fleet will obtain a lot in the best way of tangible outcomes.
By Park Hyun, editorial author
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