From The Deckplates

President Trump thinks the ships we build are ugly.¹ This Tuesday, he began work on this pressing issue by demanding a new class of “big, beautiful” battleships named after himself.² The Navy will develop these new Trump-class battleships instead of continuing the DDG(X) program.³ The DDG(X) intended to learn from the DDG-1000 Zumwalt’s mistakes.⁴ BIW would have had a role in the design.⁵

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) drew strong parallels between Trump’s new program and the Zumwalt series. Not only will the new ship be bigger and more complicated than the DDG-1000s, but:

The Navy will commit to 2 of these ships, then 10, and eventually perhaps a total of 20–25. This is a risky acquisition strategy because ships get much cheaper the more that are built. The object lesson is the DDG-1000 class, which was originally intended to number 18–24, later cut back to 10, and finally reduced to 3 ships. The BBG program will replicate this contraction if it fails. The cost per DDG-1000 rose from an estimated $2.3 billion to $3.6 billion (fiscal year 2005 dollars)—$5.6 billion in FY 2025 dollars. That excludes $14.4 billion in development costs (FY 2025 dollars).⁶

CSIS called the Trump-class battleship “extremely high risk.” “When the full cost and schedule become known, the program will almost certainly be canceled. However, that may be after spending several years and several billion dollars.”⁷ This didn’t stop Chuck Krugh from taking to Facebook to announce his support for Trump’s latest vanity project:

General Dynamics Bath Iron Works stands ready to fully support the Navy in the design and construction of this important new shipbuilding program… As a leading shipbuilder for the Navy for more than 140 years, GDBIW has the capacity, capability and engineering expertise to design and build the world’s best warships. America’s warfighters deserve the most advanced, lethal and survivable combat ships we can deliver to protect our country and our families.⁸

Trump also gave federal workers Christmas Eve and the Friday after Christmas off.⁹ Chuck followed suit. BIW excused some employees Code 03 on Christmas Eve. The extent of this coverage is unclear. I will report more on these Code 03s as information becomes available next week. I will also get back to sharing headlines next Friday. Due to the holiday this week, I wasn’t able to spend as much time with the news as normal.

1. Cheryl Teh, “Trump griped about how US Navy ships were ugly in comparison to ‘nicer, sleeker’ Russian and Italian ships, says Mark Esper,” Business Insider (2022, May 8); Chris Panella, “Trump went off about ‘ugly’ stealth warships in his wandering chat with US generals and admirals,” Business Insider (2025, September 30). ↩︎
2. Bernd Dubesmann Jr, “Trump unveils plans for ‘Golden Fleet’ battleships named after himself,” BBC (2025, December 22); Konstantin Toropin and Aamer Madhani, “Trump announces plans for new Navy ‘battleship’ as part of a ‘Golden Fleet’,” AP (2025, December 22). ↩︎
3. Matthew Olay, “Trump Announces New Class of Battleship,” US Department of War, news release (2025, December 22). ↩︎
4. David Sharp, “US Navy applies lessons from costly shipbuilding mistakes,” AP (2023, February 24) ↩︎
5. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, “Bath Iron Works Part of Industry Team Awarded DDG(X) Design Contract by Navy,” news release (2022, July 22). ↩︎
6. Mark Cancian, “The Golden Fleet’s Battleship Will Never Sail,” CSIS (2025, December 23). ↩︎
7. Ibid. ↩︎
8. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, “General Dynamics Bath Iron Works stands ready to fully support the Navy in the design and construction of this important new shipbuilding program…” Facebook (2025, December 22). ↩︎
9. Emily Peck and Marc Caputo, “Trump declares Christmas Eve, Dec. 26 as federal holidays this year,” Axios (2025, December 18). ↩︎