US Congress committee warns Trump battleship plan could strain shipyards and delay AUKUS submarines

A House Armed Services Committee amendment has raised fresh concern that Donald Trump's proposed Trump-class battleship programme could put additional pressure on US shipyards. The committee wants the US Navy to explain how it would avoid disrupting existing nuclear-powered shipbuilding plans. The issue matters beyond the United States because delays in submarine production could affect Australia's planned AUKUS submarine acquisition.

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The amendment was passed by the committee this week as part of a defence budget bill. It says the committee is concerned about the strain on US nuclear shipyards and the maritime industrial base posed by the aggressive schedule proposed for the BBG(X) platform, another name for the battleship project. The measure asks the Navy for a report on its strategy to design and construct the ships without interfering with current nuclear-powered shipbuilding plans.

The concern centres on the US submarine-building programme, which is already facing construction delays. Those delays are significant because Australia hopes to buy at least three Virginia-class submarines under the AUKUS pact. The row also comes after navy documents last month indicated that the Trump-class battleships would be nuclear-powered, adding to questions about demand on the same industrial base.

The committee's warning highlights a wider problem in US naval procurement: limited shipyard capacity and a single supplier of nuclear reactors for the Navy's boats. The amendment says procurement of naval nuclear reactors typically occurs two to three years before delivery, underlining how tightly scheduled the production chain already is. Any additional programme competing for the same specialist workforce and industrial capacity could therefore have knock-on effects.

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The battleship proposal itself was announced by Trump in December, when he said the ships would be part of a so-called Golden Fleet. He described the planned vessels as the fastest and biggest ever built, and said they would be far more powerful than any battleship before them. Democrats on the committee unsuccessfully tried to remove funding for the plan, with one member arguing it would encroach on existing industrial base capacity and run against lessons learned from shipbuilding.

The amendment was moved by Democrat Joe Courtney, who has been one of Congress's key supporters of AUKUS. That gives the warning added weight, because the same lawmakers backing the Australia-UK-US security partnership are now questioning whether the battleship plan could slow the submarine programme on which AUKUS depends. The issue is therefore both industrial and strategic, linking US domestic shipbuilding decisions to allied defence planning.

What remains unclear is how the Navy will respond and whether the battleship project will be adjusted to reduce pressure on the submarine programme. It is also not yet clear how the committee's concerns will affect the wider defence budget process. The next point to watch is whether the Navy can provide a credible plan showing that the BBG(X) programme will not interfere with nuclear-powered submarine construction.

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