With Democrats set to control both chambers of Congress, key defense programs initiated under the Trump administration are now subject to intense fiscal scrutiny.
Analysts and lawmakers suggest that the political branding of these projects, combined with their substantial costs and technical challenges, makes them primary targets for legislative intervention in the coming year. Military news outlet The War Zone had forecast this scenario on November 4, noting that a Democratic victory would place key Trump-era projects under pressure for cuts.
The “Golden Fleet” initiative, a plan to expand the U.S. Navy that includes the construction of Trump-class battleships, is currently facing uncertainty following the Republican loss of the congressional majority.
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The program envisions a force of nuclear-powered surface combatants equipped with advanced weapons systems. The U.S. shipbuilding industry’s production capacity and enormous construction costs are viewed as significant obstacles. Newport News Shipbuilding remains the only domestic facility certified to build such nuclear-powered surface ships.
The project’s projected cost is a major point of contention. In August 2026, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that building 15 Trump-class battleships would cost a total of $275 billion in 2026 dollars.
The Trump-class battleship is likely to be scrapped for two reasons: it bears Trump’s name, and its costs are excessively high while the rationale for pursuing it is weak.
Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Democratic Representative Adam Smith, the leading candidate to chair the House Armed Services Committee, has criticized the focus on large-scale battleships. He argued that the U.S. military requires an appropriate mix of survivable advanced weapons systems and low-cost, expendable forces, not the fleet of nuclear-powered battleships proposed by the president.
The “Golden Dome,a multilayered defense system that uses satellites, radar and other technologies to detect and intercept ballistic missiles and other threats, also faces an uncertain path. While some analysts suggest the program may be
trimmed down” rather than fully terminated, others believe its association with the current administration makes it a target for total defunding.
Experts like Dabbiru suggest that funding might instead shift toward practical upgrades for existing ground-based radars and regional defenses, as space-based interceptors are expensive.
Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, proposed in a September Senate hearing that a name change could help “depoliticize” the issue. It is no secret that the ‘Golden Dome’ moniker has contributed to political polarization around the effort,
Karako testified, noting that Congress possesses the legislative power to rename initiatives in future defense authorization acts.
The Space-Based Interceptor part is really, really hard, and the physics clearly favors the offense. We could go down this road, spend hundreds of billions of dollars, and not get any return on that investment, and missile defense is too important to pursue this just based on aspiration alone. Sen
Despite the high probability of cuts, some experts caution against a complete abandonment of all ongoing defense efforts.
There’s no doubt that whatever it’s going to be called, it won’t be called Golden Dome, and there will definitely be machinations in the system, but it won’t be a ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’ approach,
Taylor said, noting that given the current risk profile, a total cessation of all related work remains unlikely.
