Can Trump's 'Maritime Golden Age' Catch Up With China? Navy Secretary Firing In Focus As Shipbuilding Tensions Deepen
The abrupt firing of Navy Secretary John Phelan, the latest top official forced out in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's turbulent Pentagon, stresses President Donald Trump's anxiety over his divisive push to remake U.S. shipbuilding as a centerpiece of competition with China.
Phelan Ouster Jolts Trump's Pentagon
Phelan, a billionaire investor and Trump fundraiser, was ousted on Wednesday after 13 months in the job, becoming the first service secretary removed in Trump's second term. The ouster comes as Trump has pushed the Navy into “wartime footing” for expanding the nation’s lagging shipbuilding capacity.
The move caught many officials and lawmakers off guard and came as Trump has made naval construction an increasingly personal priority. Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery said on Thursday, speaking to NPR, that he was not "disappointed" by Phelan's ouster, arguing that Phelan and Trump had embraced an expensive and flawed battleship concept.
"He and the president cooked up an extremely bad idea, which is a very large target known as a battleship," Montgomery told reporters, adding that the first ship could cost $24 billion to $26 billion, about the price of 12 destroyers.
CNN reported on Wednesday that Phelan was asked to resign after Trump met with Hegseth over shipbuilding and concluded new leadership was needed. A Fox News report on Thursday said tensions between Hegseth and Phelan had been building for months, including after Hegseth fired Phelan's chief of staff, John Harrison, in October 2025.
Battleship Push Fuels Deeper Shipbuilding Fight
Trump announced the new "Golden Fleet" in December, including a Trump-class battleship pitched as a successor to the Navy's destroyer force.
The Trump administration is pushing a major revitalization of U.S. shipbuilding, a “Make America Shipbuilding Great Again” plan, aiming for a “Maritime Golden Age” to boost national security and economic growth. To that effect, the Navy asked this month for a $377 billion budget next year, including $65.8 billion for shipbuilding to buy 18 battle-force ships, while also setting aside funding tied to the lead battleship, USS Defiant.
Benefactors Of Trump’s US Shipbuilding Focus
Less than 1% of new commercial ships are built in the United States, a stark sign of how far the domestic industry has fallen behind, according to the White House. China, meanwhile, has spent years building a dominant global position in shipbuilding, with U.S. trade officials and other analysts saying Chinese yards now account for more than half of global output.
America's Maritime Action Plan, or MAP, is Washington's answer to that imbalance, pairing industrial-policy support with a broader Pentagon shipbuilding push that also includes a $65.8 billion request tied to 34 vessels in the latest Navy budget plan.
For investors, the clearest beneficiaries in shipbuilding remain Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. (NYSE:HII), General Dynamics Corp (NYSE:GD), and, to a lesser extent, BAE Systems PLC (OTC:BAESY) because of their naval exposure.
Huntington Ingalls, the biggest pure-play U.S. military shipbuilder, traded at $370.14 at the end of regular trading hours on Thursday, while General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works and Electric Boat, traded at $318.71. Meanwhile, BAE Systems' U.S.-listed ADR was at $114.13, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Benzinga Edge's Stock Ranking data currently shows negative trends in the short- and medium-term price trend for HII, GD and BAESY, but favorable Growth scores for Huntington Ingalls’ and General Dynamics’ stock.
Image via Shutterstock/ Joshua Sukoff