🚨Trump Just Named Two Battleships After Himself…BIG MISTAKE

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Standing beneath chandeliers at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump this week unveiled what he described as a bold new vision for American naval dominance: a pair of massive, gold-accented battleships that he said would form the core of a new “Golden Fleet.”

According to Mr. Trump, the vessels — which he suggested could inaugurate a new “Trump class” of warships — would be larger and more powerful than any surface combatants previously built, equipped with hypersonic missiles, rail guns and laser defenses. Renderings displayed behind him showed sleek, oversized ships emblazoned with his name.

Within hours, however, the proposal had drawn skepticism from defense experts, budget analysts and former naval officers, many of whom questioned whether the plan reflected modern military realities — or a costly exercise in presidential branding.

The most immediate criticism centered on the choice of platform itself. Battleships, once symbols of industrial might and naval supremacy, have been absent from the U.S. fleet for decades. The last active American battleships were retired in the early 1990s, replaced by aircraft carriers, submarines and guided-missile destroyers better suited to contemporary warfare.

“Large, heavily armored surface ships are no longer the centerpiece of naval strategy,” said one former Navy strategist, speaking on background to discuss internal defense planning. “They are expensive to build, expensive to operate and increasingly vulnerable in missile-saturated environments.”

Modern naval doctrine, articulated repeatedly by the United States Navy, emphasizes distributed lethality — smaller, more numerous platforms, often networked with submarines, drones and long-range precision weapons. Large surface vessels, analysts note, present highly visible targets for adversaries armed with advanced anti-ship missiles, hypersonic weapons and unmanned systems.

The Trump proposal also revived memories of earlier attempts to reintroduce big-gun naval firepower. The Zumwalt-class destroyer program, launched in the early 2000s, was designed as a technologically advanced surface combatant with powerful guns and stealth features. It was ultimately scaled back amid soaring costs and unresolved technical problems, becoming a cautionary tale within the Pentagon.

“Even with cutting-edge technology, the Navy struggled to justify the Zumwalt,” said Bryan Clark, a former naval officer and defense analyst at the Hudson Institute. “A return to battleships — especially larger ones — would face even steeper hurdles.”

Cost is another major concern. While Mr. Trump did not provide detailed budget estimates, naval construction experts said that building and maintaining such ships would likely require tens of billions of dollars, at a time when Congress is already grappling with rising defense expenditures and competing domestic priorities.

Critics also pointed to the unusual emphasis on personal branding. U.S. warships are traditionally named after states, cities or historical figures, a practice intended to reflect national rather than individual identity. Naming vessels after a sitting president — or adorning them with gold finishes — would mark a sharp departure from longstanding norms.

Supporters of Mr. Trump, however, framed the proposal as an effort to restore American strength and deterrence. In remarks at Mar-a-Lago, he invoked the legacy of World War II–era battleships like the USS Iowa and USS Missouri, arguing that scale and firepower still mattered in projecting power abroad.

Military historians caution against drawing direct parallels between mid-20th-century naval warfare and today’s strategic environment. “The battleship era ended not because of politics, but because technology changed,” said Andrew Gordon, a naval historian at the U.S. Naval War College. “Air power, missiles and submarines reshaped the battlefield.”

Whether the “Golden Fleet” concept advances beyond a rhetorical flourish remains unclear. No formal request for funding has been submitted to Congress, and Pentagon officials have not indicated support for reviving battleship construction. Still, the announcement has reignited broader debates about defense spending, modernization and the role of spectacle in military policy.

For some analysts, the proposal is emblematic of a recurring tension in American defense planning: the pull between nostalgia and innovation.

“Military power isn’t about how impressive something looks,” said Mr. Clark. “It’s about whether it works in the world we actually live in.”

As Congress and defense planners weigh the future of the Navy, the Golden Fleet may stand less as a blueprint than as a symbol — raising enduring questions about how strategy, symbolism and personal legacy intersect at the highest levels of power.