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President Donald Trump wants a new one arsenal of warships According to a report, it is called the “Golden Fleet” to counter the threat from China.
While the President is in great trouble Demolition of the historic East Wing of the White House, They have also turned their attention to changing the existing mix US Navy warships, wall street journal Report.
The Navy and senior Trump officials are reported to be in discussions for an ambitious new fleet that could address potential future threats from China. The reported plans come as the President is expected to attend a high-level meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming days. In his first visit to Asia after returning to power.
Warships in the so-called Golden Fleet will be equipped with powerful long-range missiles, officials said, amid concerns that China is rapidly building and modernizing its warships. WSJ,
“This warship of tomorrow will actually be carrying long-range missiles,” Brian Clark, a retired Navy officer and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who participated in the discussion, told the outlet.
According to the outlet, the Pentagon and the White House are reportedly in early discussions about a plan to build a new 15,000 to 20,000-ton ship that would be heavily armored, potentially with hypersonic missiles.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly indicated in a statement to the outlet that an announcement about the plans would be made in the future. “Stay tuned!” he said after praising Trump’s efforts to “enhance America’s maritime dominance.”
Presidents have long complained about the beauty of Navy warships.
Mark Esper, his former secretary of state during the first Trump administration, recalled the president saying that warships “are not built to win beauty pageants, but to fight and win,” he wrote in his memoir.
on a summit last month In Virginia where top US military leaders were summoned from their posts around the world, the president acknowledged he was “not a fan” of some of the Navy’s warships.
“They say, ‘Oh, it’s secret.’ I said, ‘It’s not stealth.’ It doesn’t take an ugly ship to say you’re secret,” Trump complained.
Navy Secretary John Phelan revealed in February that Trump was so fixated on the issue that even before Phelan was confirmed by the Senate, he was often texting him in the middle of the night to complain.
“President Trump has messaged me multiple times very late at night, sometimes after 1 a.m. [about] A rusting ship or a ship in the yard, asking me what I’m doing about it,” Phelan said during his confirmation hearing.
Retired Navy officer Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the administration should focus on clearing the current backlog of ship maintenance before launching a new fleet.
“The President’s aesthetic vision is not an appropriate paradigm for evaluating strategic ship requirements,” Montgomery said. WSJ,
The plans follow an order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year That ship bears the name of a gay rights symbol and navy veteran harvey milk The name should be changed.
The Office of the Secretary of the Navy issued a memo in June revealing the change plan Replenishment oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk, named Which was named in 2021.
Examples of renaming naval ships are rare, and the process is prohibited according to naval traditions.