Defense News By: David B. Larter 2/25/2020
Despite campaigning on a 350-ship Navy, U.S. President Donald Trump is on track to leave office with a fleet smaller than the 308 ships called for by the Obama administration.
For much of the last administration, the goal was for 305-308 ships, and only in the very late days of Barack Obama’s presidency did a Navy force structure assessment raise the goal to 355 ships. With its latest budget submission, which projects all the way through a hypothetical second term for Trump, the Navy grows to 305 ships.
An examination of the first four budgets compiled by the Trump administration, including one from 2017 that was amended and submitted to Congress by Trump after his inauguration, shows the president proposed a modest 8 percent increase in ship numbers compared to the last four budgets proposed by the Obama administration.
Between the 2013 and 2016 budgets, the Obama administration proposed 34 ships, while between 2017 and 2020, the Trump administration proposed 37.
Despite the more modest shipbuilding bump proposed by Trump, Congress has been much more aggressive, appropriating funds for 50 ships during the same time frame. That’s a 26 percent increase over the White House’s requests.
As Trump’s first term comes to a close, the president who called for a massive fleet buildup as a candidate has presided over something more tempered: a focus on current readiness and pledges to expand the fleet only so long as budgets are growing. And in 2021, with a budget request that’s essentially flat over last year’s request, the Defense Department is attempting to throw the process in reverse, requesting just seven new ships, according to a new Congressional Research Service report.
The president’s fiscal 2021 budget request, with its broad cuts to the destroyer program and its early ship retirements, puts the Navy on track for a 305-ship fleet by 2025, according to budget documents. That is 12 ships fewer than the 317 ships projected to be in the fleet in 2025 in Obama’s 30-year shipbuilding plan introduced in 2016, and that’s eight ships fewer than the Trump administration’s latest shipbuilding plan.
Furthermore, the fleet was supposed to reach 300 ships in 2019, according to the 2016 shipbuilding plan, but the fleet has yet to hit that mark.
More:
https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/25/trump-called-for-a-350-ship-fleet-but-his-budget-would-fall-short-of-even-obama-era-goals/
