President promises military expansion
Trump cites Navy in case to boost spending by $54B
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday chose a dramatic backdrop to tout his proposed $54 billion military spending boost, standing on board the most technologically advanced — and most expensive — warship ever built.
Speaking on the USS Gerald R. Ford, a new aircraft carrier that came with an almost $13 billion price tag, Trump promised to make good on his campaign promise to expand the Navy’s 275-ship fleet to 350. It is the biggest proposed expansion since the early 1980s and one that naval analysts warn will be immensely more expensive and time-consuming than the president may realize, given that current funds don’t even cover the cost of maintaining the current fleet.
“We’re going to have, very soon, the finest equipment in the world,” Trump vowed, calling on Congress to pass his proposed funding increase for the Pentagon and eliminate the defense spending caps.
“By eliminating the sequester and the uncertainty it creates, we will make it easier for the Navy to plan for the future and thus to control costs and get the best deals for the taxpayer which, of course, is very important, right?” he said.
The U.S. spends more than a half-trillion dollars on defense, more than the next seven countries combined.
In recent years, the Navy’s size has ranged from 270 to 290 ships. Expanding it to Trump’s 350-ship goal would cost $25 billion a year over the next 30 years, more than 60 percent above the average amount allocated for shipbuilding in past years, according to a Congressional Budget Office report.
Trump said new warships like the USS Gerald R. Ford will be used to “project American power in distant lands.”
“Hopefully it’s power we don’t have to use,” he said. “But if we do, they’re in big, big trouble.”
The expansion comes with an eye on China, which has rapidly upped its naval capacity in recent years.
China’s navy is expected to approach parity with the U.S. forces around 2020 but is focusing its forces in its own geographic region, while the U.S. Navy is spread across the world. “If a 500-ship Chinese navy is concentrated in that very finite subset of the sea off China’s shores and a 350-ship U.S. Navy is scattered around places like the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea and so forth, you can see how lopsided the mismatch in East Asia could become,” Jim Holmes, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval College who specializes in China, said.
Navy leaders plan to mitigate the imbalance in the numbers by arming U.S. vessels with more high-tech weapons.
“Hopefully it’s power we don’t have to use. But if we do, they’re in big, big trouble.” President Donald Trump