The estimated cost of the USS Defiant, the first of President Donald Trump’s eponymous class of battleships, has increased to $23 billion—nearly double the cost of a Ford-class supercarrier!

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have called for the construction of a “Golden Fleet” for the United States that could include up to 15 new 21st-century Trump-class guided-missile battleships. 

However, a newly released report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that “golden” could be the operative word in “Golden Fleet”—given the vast amount of taxpayer dollars the US Navy will need in order to fund the BBG(X) warships.

According to the CBO, the USS Defiant, the lead vessel of the new class of battleships, could cost around $23 billion, up from previous estimates of around $15 billion. Both totals are significantly higher than the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the first of the US Navy’s cutting-edge Ford-class nuclear-powered supercarriers, which cost taxpayers approximately $13.3 billion. And CVN-78 itself went significantly over budget!

Although the first ship in a class is always the most expensive, the Defiant’s successors are not expected to be significantly cheaper, at around $18 billion each. If these numbers are correct, the price tag for the entire fleet of 15 ships could exceed $275 billion. If the Navy expands its order to 25 of the vessels, as Trump has said he wants, that cost would rise to $455 billion.

Crucially, that figure is just for the construction itself, not including steep operational costs. And because the current plans call for each to be powered by the same nuclear reactors as the Gerald R. Ford-class supercarriers, it will likely cost billions more to recycle the battleships at the end of their service lives—a problem the Navy is now contending with for its earliest nuclear-powered carriers.

Battleships Are Ancient History. Why Does Trump Want Them?

Trump first unveiled the plans to build the warships last December at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The commander-in-chief noted at the time that his admiration for the battleships came in part from watching the early 1950s television documentary Victory at Sea.

Months earlier, during the all-hands-on-deck meeting of top Pentagon officials in Quantico, Virginia, Trump first touted the idea of the US Navy developing a new class of battleships, saying, “I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships, by the way.”

“I used to watch Victory at Sea,” Trump told the audience of generals. “I love Victory at Sea. Look at these admirals. It’s got to be your all time—in black and white. I look at those ships, they came with the destroyers alongside of them, and man, nothing was going to stop. There were 20 deep, and they were in a straight line and there was nothing going to stop them. And we actually talk about, you know, those ships. Some people would say, no, that’s old technology. I don’t know.”

When the Trump-class battleship was unveiled in the Oval Office, it was described as the most advanced battleship ever built. Instead of the large 16-inch guns of the World War II-era Iowa class, the new warships would be outfitted with cutting-edge technologies, including an electromagnetic railgun, hypersonic missile launchers, directed energy weapons (DEWs), and anti-drone dazzlers. Most of these technologies are still in their infancy, leading Congress to demand proof that the weapons are viable before the ships can be built.

Displacing 30,000 tons each, the vessels would be smaller than the World War II battlewagons, yet still more than three and a half times the size of the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and twice the size of the three Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers. The latter warships are currently the largest US surface combatant that isn’t an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship.

The US Navy’s struggles with the Zumwalt class ought to be a warning to ambitious naval planners intent on creating a new type of ship from whole cloth. The Zumwalt program is arguably little more than a massive hole in the water, into which the Pentagon has thrown seemingly endless billions of dollars. It should serve as a warning against future battleships, especially those to be armed with advanced yet unproven weapons.

Trump’s Message to the Navy: Support My Battleships—or Else

Given the costs, the lack of a clear mission, and the fact that many naval analysts have warned that large warships are little more than enormous targets for advanced anti-ship missiles and drone swarms, the question is why is the US Navy even on board?

The previous shipbuilding plan called for a larger fleet of manned vessels, supported by smaller uncrewed autonomous vessels. This could be about tonnage numbers rather than fleet size. A handful of battleships could increase the tonnage, even if the plan remains impractical.

It is also likely that no one dares speak out against the battleships, and for good reason.

In April, Trump fired former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, who had rocked the proverbial boat. Phelan had been a close ally of Trump’s for years, helping to fundraise for Trump’s 2024 campaign, even donating close to a million dollars of his own money. But in early 2026, Phelan reportedly told the president that he couldn’t meet the proposed timeline. Even worse, he did so while bypassing Hegseth, his boss at the Pentagon. The former NAVSEC suggested the American shipbuilding sector wasn’t up to the task.

Instead of heeding Phelan’s advice, Trump fired him. Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, Phelan’s successor, seems to have taken a lesson from his predecessor, so far remaining mum on the battleships. Other Navy officials may simply be going along with the plan until Trump leaves office, knowing full well that the battleships are unlikely to leave the drawing board before his retirement in January 2029.

Can America’s Defense Industry Actually Build the Battleships?

Phelan may have been just the first messenger to deliver bad news and face firing, but he was hardly a voice of reason, having supported the idea from the beginning last year. It had been the independent analysts and government watchdogs who quickly signaled how unrealistic the concept is, but also the difficulties it would face in development and eventual construction.

Moreover, most experts agree that battleships aren’t the right course for the US Navy.

“By 2035, the Navy’s 2027 plan would more than double the tonnage of large surface combatants that shipbuilders would need to produce,” the CBO wrote in its report. “Overall, the tonnage of large surface combatants to be constructed would need to increase by 60 percent, while the tonnage of small surface combatants would decrease by about 40 percent. Accommodating such a sizable increase in the production of large surface combatants could be a challenge for the shipbuilding industry.”

That latter issue is what Phelan warned about, as have others. The US defense industrial base’s resources are finite, and have many competing demands. The US Navy has only a single shipyard that could build the Trump-class battleships, at Newport News, Virginia—but that shipyard is also building the Ford-class carriers, handling the nuclear refueling of the Nimitz-class supercarriers, and will be tasked with defueling those same flattops as they leave service, starting with the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in spring 2027.

The rising cost is only the latest reason it is unlikely the Trump-class battleship will ever be built—reasons that everyone but the president and his inner circle seem to understand.

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

The post Surprise: Trump’s Battleships Will Cost Billions More Than Predicted appeared first on The National Interest.