Trump-class battleship would dwarf every US destroyer built since World War II
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A new US Congressional Budget Office report has estimated that the Navy's proposed Trump-class battleship program could ultimately cost taxpayers $275 billion.
The first vessel alone is projected to cost $23.4 billion, roughly $6 billion more than the Navy's initial estimate initially offered in December 2025.
Officials describe the 35,000-ton nuclear-powered warship as the most heavily armed surface combatant the Navy has ever attempted to build.
The Trump administration announced its intention to build this new class of large surface combatants in December 2025, describing it as a guided missile battleship.
It plans to equip this battleship with rail guns, large lasers, hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles and anti-air, land-attack and anti-ship missiles.
“If built to those specifications, the ship would be the largest surface combatant in the world and larger than any surface combatant built for the Navy since World War II,” according to the report.
“It would be more than three and a half times the size of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and more than twice the size of the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer.”
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The Navy will construct 15 Trump-class battleships between 2028 and 2056, with each of the following fourteen ships priced at $18 billion.
By comparison, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy's newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, cost approximately $13.3 billion to build.
According to the CBO report, shipyards would need to produce 12% greater tonnage by 2035 under the 2027 plan than under the 2025 version.
To meet this schedule, the Navy would need to construct roughly one new battleship every other year between 2028 and 2056.
During that same period, the service would also need to continue producing two DDG-51 destroyers every single year without interruption or delay.
