US President Donald Trump now says that the sacking of Secretary of the Navy John Phelan was due to internal conflicts over shipbuilding and cooperation within the Pentagon. According to the New York Times, the issue specifically concerned a lack of progress on the President’s dream of a new “Trump Class”.
John Phelan’s departure as Secretary of the Navy was announced on Wednesday without explanation by the US Department of Defence and caused quite a stir in Washington. But according to Trump, it was a matter of disagreements with the military leadership – particularly regarding the pace of new ship programmes. “He is very decisive, and he had some conflicts with others, primarily regarding the building and purchase of new ships,” said Trump. “You have to be able to work together, especially in the military; you have to be able to work together.”
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“Trump Class”
According to the Reuters news agency, Phelan was criticised, among other things, for being too slow to implement reforms designed to speed up US shipbuilding.
Phelan had focused particularly on increasing industrial capacity and promoting new ship programmes, including the FF(X) frigate programme and the Medium Landing Ship (LSM). However, according to New York Times sources within the department, the reason for the dismissal was that Phelan was unable to deliver on the president’s request for an entirely new class of warships, which Trump announced shortly before Christmas under the name “Trump Class”.
It was the Secretary of the Navy’s task to ensure that the first of Trump’s warships could be delivered in 2028 – a deadline that is, to put it mildly, impossible for a new warship. The design of a new, super-advanced warship alone will take many years, an expert pointed out to the newspaper. And the US shipbuilding industry has absolutely no capacity to build a technologically advanced battleship of the type Trump envisages within the next few years, unnamed senior military officials told the newspaper.
According to the New York Times’ sources, the now-sacked Secretary of the Navy suggested to Donald Trump that the Navy might have to look to European shipyards to have the ships built. This was rejected by the President.
