President Donald Trump’s plan to build a “golden fleet” of nuclear-powered battleships bearing his name is now projected to cost at least 50 percent more than the Navy originally estimated, according to a nonpartisan government report released Wednesday. The new figures, compiled by the Congressional Budget Office, put the total price tag for 15 ships at roughly $275 billion — a number that could climb even higher if the vessels grow in size or the program slips further behind schedule.
A First Ship Already $8 Billion Over Initial Estimates
The lead ship of the new class, the U.S.S. Defiant, is now expected to cost $23.4 billion, about $8 billion more than the Navy had originally indicated. Each of the 14 additional battleships is projected to cost slightly more than $18 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $10.2 billion per hull. The CBO said the first vessel alone could take eight years or longer to build, with the Navy planning to award the construction contract in 2028 and deliver the ship around 2036.
Trump’s December Announcement
Mr. Trump unveiled the battleship program in December, standing alongside renderings of the proposed vessels and declaring that they would help “maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world.” At the time, he said he expected two of the ships to be under construction within two and a half years, and he described the future fleet in sweeping terms.
“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Mr. Trump said.
The Shift to Nuclear Power
Months after the initial announcement, Mr. Trump decided the battleships would run on nuclear reactors rather than the gas turbine engines used aboard the Navy’s current destroyers and cruisers — a change that added significantly to the projected cost. The CBO’s report found that an initial, conventionally powered battleship would have cost around $21.3 billion, with all 15 ships totaling roughly $243 billion. The move to nuclear propulsion pushed the total program cost about 13 percent higher, to the $275 billion figure now on the books.
“New ship types and new ship classes invariably cost more than is estimated at the start of construction,” said Norman Polmar, a naval analyst and author.
What the Ships Are Meant to Carry
The term battleship traditionally refers to an earlier generation of large, heavily armored warships built around multiple turrets of major-caliber guns; the last American battleship was launched in 1944. The vessels Mr. Trump envisions are considerably smaller and would rely primarily on guided missiles rather than heavy naval guns. According to the CBO, each ship is designed around 128 Mark 41 vertical launch cells and would be built to carry anti-air and land-attack missiles, hypersonic weapons, and nuclear cruise missiles, along with conventional 5-inch guns. Some of the additional weapons the Navy has said will arm the ships — including an electromagnetic railgun — were previously canceled after billions of dollars in failed research and development, while others, such as a defensive laser weapon, do not yet exist in fielded form.
Size, Scope and the “Golden Fleet”
At roughly 35,000 tons, the CBO estimated a completed Trump-class battleship would be the largest surface combatant in the world — more than three and a half times the size of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and more than twice the size of the stealthy Zumwalt-class destroyers. The budget office cautioned that if the ship’s displacement grows to 41,000 tons, a change it considers plausible, the cost per hull could rise by another 16 percent, which would push the total program cost as high as $528 billion. Mr. Trump has said he may ultimately want as many as 25 nuclear-powered battleships as part of what he has called the “golden fleet.” Building that larger fleet would cost roughly $455 billion, according to the figures in the CBO report.
Where the Ships Would Actually Be Built
The report also raised questions about where final assembly of the battleships would take place. The CBO noted that the Navy does not currently plan to have Bath Iron Works in Maine or Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi — the two yards that have built all of the Navy’s large surface combatants for the past 40 years — perform final assembly of the battleship. Instead, that work is expected to fall to Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, currently the only new-construction facility certified to build nuclear-powered surface ships, at a dock that is already being used to build Ford-class aircraft carriers. The CBO warned that Newport News is already behind schedule on three aircraft carriers under construction, and that adding battleship assembly to its workload “could lengthen the delays for those programs, in addition to delaying the construction of the battleship itself.”
Democrats Push Back
The CBO analysis was conducted at the request of Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. In a statement, Merkley criticized the scale of the spending.
“At a time when families are struggling to afford groceries, gas, health care and child care, Congress cannot throw hundreds of billions of dollars at Trump’s ‘Golden Fleet,’ including plastering his name across a new battleship,” the senator said.
On Tuesday, Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said in a statement that funding for the new fleet had been stripped from the continuing resolution advancing through the Senate, a stopgap measure that would otherwise fund the government through Dec. 11.
A Program Already on Uncertain Footing
Whether any of the battleships will ultimately be built remains far from certain. The Navy has struggled in recent years to deliver new classes of warships on time and within budget. The Constellation-class frigate program was canceled just a month before Mr. Trump announced his namesake vessel, and the littoral combat ship program has been plagued by mechanical and reliability problems severe enough that the Navy has already begun decommissioning some of the vessels. The Ford-class aircraft carriers, meanwhile, have been hampered by mechanical and electrical issues since the lead ship was commissioned; only one is currently in active service, and delivery of the next two carriers in the class has been delayed by years.
Analysts have also flagged the political risk facing the program. Because the battleship class is so closely associated with the current president, it is likely to be among the defense programs most vulnerable to cancellation if Republicans lose control of the House in November’s midterm elections, with the risk compounding further should a Democrat win the presidency in 2028.
An Expanding Naval Wish List
The president’s interest in expanding the Navy’s surface fleet has not been limited to battleships. Mr. Trump has also ordered $7 billion in no-bid contracts to build 11 new icebreakers for the Coast Guard, intended for use in the Arctic and Antarctic. In April, he fired his Navy secretary over what he viewed as insufficient progress on the battleship program.
Roots in a 1950s Documentary Series
In a speech to military leaders last September, Mr. Trump traced his enthusiasm for battleships back to “Victory at Sea,” a 1950s documentary television series that chronicled the role battleships and other Navy vessels played during World War II.
“I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships,” the president said. “I used to watch ‘Victory at Sea.’ I love ‘Victory at Sea.'”
Battleships, however, played a diminishing role in the Pacific theater of World War II as aircraft carriers proved more versatile and effective against Japanese naval forces. In the decades since, the Navy has generally moved toward building smaller, more capable warships suited to a wider range of missions rather than large gun-armed vessels.
Not the First President to Revive the Idea
Mr. Trump is not the first American president drawn to the idea of returning battleships to active service. After being decommissioned following World War II, several battleships were periodically recommissioned for service in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. President Ronald Reagan made battleships a centerpiece of his “600-ship Navy” concept, personally recommissioning the U.S.S. New Jersey in 1982. The last of those Reagan-era battleships, the U.S.S. Missouri, was decommissioned in 1992 after serving in the Persian Gulf War and was later converted into a floating museum at Pearl Harbor.
What Comes Next
For now, the $275 billion estimate stands as the government’s clearest public accounting of what Mr. Trump’s signature naval ambition could cost taxpayers over the next three decades. With funding for the program already stripped from the pending continuing resolution and a fight over its future likely to stretch into the midterms, the battleships that Mr. Trump has promised will be “100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built” remain, for now, still confined to renderings and budget spreadsheets rather than shipyards.