A newly released nonpartisan report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has revealed that the U.S. Navy’s ambitious plan to procure a new fleet of 15 nuclear-powered guided-missile battleships will cost an estimated $275 billion through 2056. The sweeping analysis underscores that the proposed "Trump-class" warships will rank among the most expensive military surface combatants ever constructed, dwarfing the procurement costs of nearly every other platform in modern naval history.
According to the CBO assessment, the lead ship of the class is projected to cost $23.4 billion, while the subsequent 14 follow-on vessels will average roughly $18 billion each. For comparison, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navy's premier nuclear-powered supercarrier—previously holding the title of the world's most expensive warship—cost approximately $13.3 billion when contracted (equaling over $20 billion when adjusted for modern inflation). The skyrocketing expense is primarily driven by the ships' massive scale, complex weapons suites, and the incorporation of nuclear propulsion systems.
First introduced by the administration in late 2025 as part of the "Golden Fleet" initiative, the Trump-class battleships are envisioned as heavily armed surface leviathans displacing roughly 35,000 tons. Design specifications outline an unprecedented arsenal for a surface combatant, including large-diameter vertical launch cells packed with anti-air and land-attack missiles, Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic weapons, nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, high-powered defensive lasers, and experimental electromagnetic railguns.
Beyond the monumental financial figures, the CBO report warns that the program will place severe, potentially unsustainable demands on the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base. Because the vessels require nuclear propulsion, final assembly is restricted to specialized facilities—specifically Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding—which is already experiencing backlogs and delays on ongoing aircraft carrier and submarine construction lines. Inserting a massive new battleship program into an already strained maritime industrial ecosystem risks compounding delivery schedules across multiple high-priority fleet programs.
While proponents argue that the nuclear-powered fleet will offer long-term operational savings by eliminating traditional fuel logistics and providing unmatched strategic deterrence in response to rapid foreign naval expansions, budget watchdogs and defense critics remain deeply skeptical. As the debate over defense trade-offs heats up in Washington, the CBO's figures highlight the immense fiscal and industrial hurdles facing the Navy as it attempts to realize its multi-decade surface combatant vision.
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