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Yuanyue Dang

US President Donald Trump’s long-standing obsession with sea power was underscored by his pledge to rebuild the US Navy into what he called a “Golden Fleet” as he returned to the White House.
His financial year 2027 budget released on April 3 puts a price tag on the ambition: US$65.8 billion for 34 warships, including initial funding for a next-generation battleship he wants to name after himself, part of the largest US$1.5 trillion defence-spending request in history.
But analysts say the record budget blueprint must first survive a sceptical Congress focused on voter affordability in a midterm election year – and, even if it does, the money alone cannot rescue an American shipbuilding industry that has fallen far behind China’s.
The annual presidential budget is more a policy statement outlining priorities than a legally binding document, with the final total up to Congress, which controls the purse strings.
It is also unclear how much the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran will shape debate. But most acknowledge that Trump’s outsize military budget accurately reflects long-standing US naval shortcomings – and his own outsize ambitions.

Trump’s April 2027 request proposes a massive 44 per cent increase in the US defence budget, reaching US$1.5 trillion for the year beginning October 1, and codifies a number he teased on social media in January. Congress began its discussions this month.
Congress, reconciliation rules complicate defence spending path
As outlined, the Pentagon would use these funds to “reinvest in the foundations of American military power – from defence industrial capacity to the readiness and health of the force – and ensure the United States maintains the world’s most powerful and capable military”.
In order to make the numbers work, the 2027 budget proposal would cut non-defence spending by 10 per cent to US$73 billion, paring housing, social services, healthcare and other domestic programmes.
The proposed figure of US$1.5 trillion would far exceed the military spending of every other country in the world.
And it would dwarf China’s announced 1.91 trillion yuan (US$277 billion) 2026 military budget, although experts note significant differences in their respective purchasing power and how pensions and paramilitary costs are counted.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the US spent US$997 billion on defence in 2024 – more than the next nine largest spenders combined.
If Trump’s full request is approved, it would exceed the combined military expenditures of roughly the next 34 countries in 2024.
Few, however, expect the maximalist president to get all he wants. “It’s very unlikely that you would see the full US$1.5 trillion approved by Congress,” said Byron Callan, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners, a Washington-based policy research firm.
Callan added that “a number that’s closer to a trillion dollars” was more likely, given resistance to a 10 per cent cut in social welfare – with some undisclosed war costs on top of that.


“The Republicans aren’t going to vote for higher taxes on the eve of the midterm election,” Callan said, when opinion polls showed that the biggest issue for American voters was healthcare costs.
He added that any bill during a “fairly unpopular” war was likely to need 60 votes in the Senate, forcing Republicans – who hold only a narrow majority – to win Democratic support, which would possibly come at the price of higher social spending.
Under abstruse rules in the 100-member Senate, some spending can be passed with 50 votes, a process known as “reconciliation”, while others require 60.
As outlined, US$1.15 trillion of the president’s military budget would need 60 votes for discretionary spending, with the remaining US$350 billion likely to require the straight majority to pass, relying on the reconciliation process.
While the White House budget does not mention financing the Iran war Trump started on February 28 along with Israel – which has sparked a US backlash and disrupted global markets – it is the financial elephant in the room.
A two-week US-Iran ceasefire reached on April 7 is due to expire on Wednesday – and the two sides remain far apart following the collapse of initial face-to-face talks mediated by Pakistan, with a second round still up in the air.
The US administration argues that multi-year spending must be front-loaded.
Russell Vought, Trump’s budget chief, defended the president’s huge budget request earlier this month, telling lawmakers that “for the industrial base to double or triple and build more facilities, not just add shifts, it requires multi-year agreements to purchase into the future”.
“That cost has to be booked in this first year,” Vought added.

But Brendan Boyle, the top Democratic congressman on the House Budget Committee, countered that the massive proposed increase and 40 per cent social welfare cuts showed that the Trump administration was “out of whack”.
Some Republican lawmakers have also expressed reservations. Senator Mitch McConnell, a fiscal hawk from Kentucky and chair of the panel that oversees Pentagon spending, has expressed concern that, without offsetting cuts, it would cause the deficit to balloon.
Others, like the Ohio congressman Warren Davidson, question the massive increase when the Pentagon has repeatedly failed its financial audits.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), also pushed back on the call for a massive front-loaded budget, adding that “elevated mandatory defence spending is helpful for deferred costs and would not necessarily need to be funded annually to show improvements for the force”.
Taking that approach, however, would require a higher base budget that grew faster than the rate of inflation in the coming years, added Eaglen, who also co-chairs the congressional bipartisan National Commission on the Future of the Navy that reviews force structure and shipbuilding.
US shipbuilding struggles to match China’s capacity
Eaglen also said that a large portion of this year’s mandatory request would be directed towards areas that had previously been neglected in favour of other higher priorities, such as munitions, base repair and auxiliary vessels.
“Washington is focused on strengthening and expanding America’s defence, aerospace and shipbuilding industrial base,” Eaglen said.
For the 2026 financial year, Trump initially requested US$1.01 trillion for defence, a claimed 13 per cent increase, but reached that figure only by stacking US$113 billion from a Republican reconciliation package on top of a base Pentagon request of US$892.6 billion – essentially flat with Biden-era levels – before requesting a record US$1.5 trillion for fiscal 2027.
“Although increasing the defence budget is a basic consensus between the two parties, partisan disputes will make it difficult for the budget to pass,” said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military commentator and former People’s Liberation Army instructor.
Song also expects the figure to eventually land around US$1 trillion after Congress finally hashes it out, typically around late December, pushed up by the Iran war.
In the massive 2027 budget blueprint, key priorities include expanding the US arsenal, strengthening the US Navy and modernising the nuclear force.
The 34-vessel goal would establish “President Trump’s Golden Fleet, including initial funding for the Trump-class battleship and next-generation frigates”, it said.
Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Congress was likely to prioritise shipbuilding and restocking munitions depleted in Ukraine and Iran.
“More controversial initiatives, especially new, expensive programmes without proven designs, such as the proposed Trump-class battleship, are likely to be scaled back or delayed,” Zhao said.

The US shipbuilding industry is stagnating, with its production capacity falling far behind China’s, particularly in the commercial sector, prompting alarms in American military and policy circles over threats to US maritime dominance, especially in the Indo-Pacific region.
Earlier this month, vice chief of naval operations James Kilby told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness that the “evolving joint capabilities and concepts” of the PLA “continue to strengthen China’s ability to revolutionise its maritime capability to rival and contest our own”.
US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan in January described the current US shipbuilding programmes as “behind schedule and over budget” and “a mess”, citing China as the “most consequential strategic competitor”.
According to data obtained by The War Zone in 2023 from the Office of Naval Intelligence, China’s shipbuilders were more than 200 times – measured by tonnage – more capable of producing surface warships and submarines than the US.
Since last year, Trump has repeatedly proposed revitalising the US shipbuilding industry through investments worth tens of billions of dollars.
Can funding alone rebuild America’s naval power?
However, experts say massive investment that is not well targeted will not solve US naval problems.
“America is not competing with China in military or commercial shipbuilding,” AEI’s Eaglen said.
“Outcompeted by China, the goal is to restore the maritime industrial base back to good health as well as bring in new entrants and yards,” she added.
But the Carnegie Endowment’s Zhao warned that US shipbuilding could not be transformed overnight.
“US$65.8 billion alone will not fundamentally resolve the long-term atrophy of the US shipbuilding industry,” Zhao said.
“The target of 34 ships per year will likely drive a surge in procurement funding, which can support this effort, but achieving that level of output will be a gradual process unfolding over multiple years.”


The building blocks include sustained capital investment, shipyard modernisation, workforce expansion, resilient supply chains and stable demand over the medium to long term, supported by funding, Zhao said.
He added that China’s oft-cited 200 to 1 shipbuilding advantage over the US was primarily about commercial shipyards. “Military shipbuilding is a far more specialised sector, and the imbalance there is significantly smaller,” Zhao said.
A December 2024 Pentagon report described the PLA Navy as the world’s largest, with a battle force of over 370 ships and submarines, including more than 140 major surface combatants. The report projected the fleet would grow to 435 ships by 2030.
By comparison, the US Navy had 296 battle force ships as of September 30, 2024, although experts note that the US fleet is still significantly more advanced in “blue water” power projection, tonnage and combat experience.
The US fleet is expected to shrink further to 283 vessels by 2027, as more ships are scheduled to be decommissioned than built.
In a shipbuilding plan revealed in January last year, the US Navy set a goal of expanding its fleet to 381 manned battle force ships in 30 years. Although critics say this is a pipe dream, Eaglen and others see it as essential.
“Ships take years to build,” she said. “And once they sail they incur operating costs, at-sea sustainment, maintenance and more.”


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Congressional resistance, war costs and industrial limits could constrain ambitions, even as Beijing expands its naval capacity


Congressional resistance, war costs and industrial limits could constrain ambitions, even as Beijing expands its naval capacity.


Trump’s military push confronts US lawmakers and China’s shipbuilding edge

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Congressional resistance, war costs and industrial limits could constrain ambitions, even as Beijing expands its naval capacity

Congressional resistance, war costs and industrial limits could constrain ambitions, even as Beijing expands its naval capacity