On September 30, 2025, Trump went to Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia and delivered a speech to senior military officials, focusing on restarting the battleship plan. The media exploded when this happened, because this was not the first time he had said this. He had talked about similar ideas on the USS Iowa a few months ago. In his speech, he said bluntly that the design of modern ships is too ugly. If they use aluminum alloy shells, they will become soft when they touch missiles, and they have to return to the thick steel plate configuration of old battleships. He calculated the bill and said that artillery shells were much cheaper than missiles, and he could build a new ship with tariff money. These words sound simple and crude, but on the current naval track, especially compared with China, the United States is indeed a little unable to keep up with the aircraft carrier.
First of all, the United States Navy's Ford class was originally a sign, but since the first ship's service in 2017 the problem continued. The electromagnetic bombardment system failed, the cost was excessive, and the integrated carrier was slowly swallowed. By 2025, the second John F. Kennedy was to be delivered in July 2025, and the result was pushed to March 2027. This delay directly caused the fleet to fall to 10 and have to maintain for a year. The third enterprise number also suffered, the original plan for 2028 and now has to go backwards. The shipyard, Newport News, was busy half a day, the overtime workers did not catch up, and the budget documents clearly wrote these trailers. The old MINI class fleet noted that the boat was older than 30 years, the maintenance
On the other hand, the Chinese Navy, the 80,000-ton Fujian ship, has been making rapid progress since its launch in June 2022. The electromagnetic ejection system was installed in 2024, and the direct test was successful on September 22, 2025. Both the J-35 stealth fighter jet and the Kongjing-600 early warning aircraft successfully ejected, took off and landed. The video shows that the J-35 slid out of the deck, jumped into the sky as soon as the electromagnetic force pushed it, and the tail hook firmly hooked the arresting cable when it landed. Three more aircraft were tried on September 23, including the J-15, which accelerated off the deck as soon as the ground handling signal flag was waved. This set of electromagnetic ejection technology directly matches the level of the United States, and is even ahead at some points, because the Fujian ship island is rear, the deck is straighter, and the take-off and landing efficiency is high. In the third round of testing on September 24, the J-35 became the world's first stealth carrier-based aircraft with electromagnetic ejection. Foreign media were stunned, saying that this marked a new stage of Chinese naval aviation. After the Fujian ship entered service, the Type 004 has started construction at the shipyard, and the tonnage and technology continue to increase. The Ford class in the United States is still struggling with delays, and China has actually demonstrated a full set of operations.
Trump's mention of battleships, in this context, is like trying to change tracks to avoid the shortcomings of aircraft carriers. Battleships were awesome during World War II. They were the Iowa-class ones. The steel plates were as thick as tanks, and the main guns could blast 30-40 kilometers. But it gradually retired from the stage after World War II. In the late 1940s, the U.S. Navy retired the last batch because the era of aircraft and missiles came. The battleship is large and its radars are well locked. One round of saturated missile attacks will be finished. The main gun has a short range and cannot withstand hypersonic missiles or submarine-launched torpedoes. No matter how thick the armor is, it cannot withstand over-the-horizon strikes. During the Cold War, everyone switched to aircraft carriers and submarines, and battleships became museum goods. Experts say bluntly that it is costly to build and expensive to maintain, and it is a big target in actual combat. For example, the 1905 Battle of the Matsuya Strait in the Russia-Japanese War proved that hand-to-hand combat between battleships was too risky. Now, let alone a long-range missile can solve the problem from hundreds of kilometers away.
Trump was not the first to hear about this. Earlier in 2025, he publicly stated on the Iowa ship that he wanted to think about reviving the ship, saying it represents the U.S. Navy tradition. At that time he mentioned the cost of customs revenue can cover, the cannon only fired a few thousand knots, the missiles at a million. A total of four Iowa class ships were served, in 1943 the first ship landed, the Second World War and the Korean War passed through, and the 1980s briefly revived as fire support. But in 1992 it all retreated, because the missile era did not need near-range cannon bombing. Trump turned around this again in his Talk in Teherán, saying the Navy Secretary supported plans to add 19 ships next year, including destroyers and submarines, carrying
Once this proposal was made, the reaction was polarized. The Navy keeps a low profile internally, and the spokesperson said it has to assess the feasibility. Experts directly criticized in the National Interest Magazine that battleships will have no chance in missile-led naval battles, their size is so large that they can easily be locked, and their anti-missile systems cannot withstand saturated firepower. The Congressional Navy Committee held a hearing on October 1. Lawmakers asked about costs and time. Navy officials reported billions of dollars in budgets and several years of maintenance cycles. Conservatives are lively, and old photos are splashed on social circles, saying that this can revitalize the steel industry. But the reality is that the U.S. shipbuilding industry has long withered. Although there has been technical accumulation from scratch, the 10,000-ton capacity of the China 055 destroyer has long exceeded the threshold of battleships. China's navy has simple logic, does not chase the appearance, has flexible firepower, and shore strike suppression is much more efficient than battleship.
Trump's move, on the surface, is a political card, and his speech is mixed with wake-up policy and military revitalization. Defense Secretary Hegses also echoed the end of wake-up culture. But the deeper level is that the aircraft carrier track suffers. China's Fujian ship was tested wave after wave in September, and the American Ford class was still stuck in the shipyard. Although battleships are unnecessary, the United States has a historical foundation. China has never built them, and the United States took advantage of them at the beginning. However, if China really follows, the industrial chain is stable, and the modular construction like 055 can be completed in minutes. The problem is that no one wants this track. Modern naval warfare talks about long-range, stealth and network, and the return of battleships is to return to the old road.