Make American Shipbuilding Great Again: Trump moves to build a “Golden Fleet” and deepen cooperation with South Korea

On December 7, 2025, it became known that President Donald Trump gave the green light to a plan to build a new “Golden Fleet” for the U.S. Navy, which will include a new frigate to replace the Constellation-class ships (a generation of large multi-purpose missile frigates).

In addition to the existing list of contracts for building destroyers and submarines, the Navy plans to involve “new, non-traditional partners in the American shipbuilding ecosystem,” who will design and build new classes of unmanned vessels “to expand combat capabilities.”

Washington is using the “Golden Fleet” concept as a tool to transform the American shipbuilding ecosystem, in which technological platforms for unmanned vessels are integrated into the naval structure as systematically as carrier strike groups were decades ago.