Donald Trump is vowing to build up the U.S. naval fleet capacity to contest China's growth in the sector, detailing beautiful "yachts with weapons"—and an expert told Newsweek how that may play out.
In its 2023 China Military Power Report, the Pentagon said the People's Liberation Army Navy had about 370 warships. U.S. officials, who in 2021 correlated the Chinese naval growth to the addition of more major surface combatants, estimate the fleet will expand to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials gathered at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2022 focused on intensifying and accelerating the People's Liberation Army's modernization goals, including deploying PLA forces on a "regular basis and in diversified ways," according to the Pentagon.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday asked Trump whether he would increase U.S. shipbuilding to compete with adversaries like China.
"Yeah, we were going to, we were on track to do that," Trump said. "We had unbelievable talent, unbelievable ships getting ready to be made. And then this guy [President Joe Biden] came in, and he canceled it.
"First of all, it's jobs, okay? It's very important because it's jobs, great jobs. But you know, I rebuilt the entire military, and the one thing was, the ships are, you know, they take longer to do. We were set to do something great. We started the process. We gave, as you know, the destroyers, we gave Wisconsin a tremendous yard in Wisconsin."
In April 2020, part of the last year of Trump's first term, the Italian company Fincantieri's shipyard in Wisconsin announced it would begin constructing its first Constellation-class frigate, according to Defense News.
In May 2023, the company announced that the Department of Defense awarded its $526 million contract to build a fourth Constellation-class frigate for the U.S. Navy to include the frigate and nine option ships, with a cumulative value of $5.5 billion that includes post-delivery availability support and crew training.
Construction on the first frigate, the future USS Constellation, began in late August 2022 in Marinette, Wisconsin, and is scheduled to be delivered in 2026.
"[The frigates] look, I mean, they were beautiful," Trump said. "They look like, yeah, because I'm into beauty, to be honest with you. They look like yachts with lots of weapons on them, lots of weapons.
"But, and they've really come out good. But we were giving out a lot of ships, and then this guy came in, and he has no idea what he's doing. No idea whatsoever. China is on a shipbuilding message like nobody's seen before."
Rajan Menon, a nonresident scholar in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Russia and Eurasia Program and director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities, told Newsweek via email that Trump's vision of naval ships like frigates goes beyond aesthetics.
"Frigates may be 'beautiful' in Trump's eyes, but they are far more expensive to build than yachts—to which he likens them," Menon said. "More importantly, warships, as most recently demonstrated by Ukraine's repeated, successful attacks on Russia's Black Sea Fleet, provide big targets for the most advanced anti-ship missiles."
Menon said that the naval disparity between the U.S. and China can be tied to two separate questions, one of which is whether China in any foreseeable future can displace the worldwide maritime supremacy the U.S. has. He said the answer is "no."
But China's reliance on a variety of sophisticated weapons that substantially increase the cost "in blood and treasure" is already costing the U.S. and its warships in the seas off the eastern shore, he added.
"Moreover, its capabilities in this respect are almost certain to increase, in quantity and quality," he said.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Nick Mordowanec is a Newsweek reporter based in Michigan. His focus is reporting on Ukraine and Russia, along with social ... Read more
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