GOP Senators Question Biden’s Navy Budget as China Projects Having 150 More Ships Than US by 2028

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) listens as U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken testifies during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Department of State budget request in Washington on June 08, 2021. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Republican senators expressed concerns this week about the Biden administration’s Navy budget, saying that the proposed spending is not adequate to confront the threat posed by China’s expanding naval forces.

“This administration’s budget request does not fully reflect the challenges identified in its own national defense strategy,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said at a hearing on March 28.

“The President’s budget requests would result in a fleet of 291 ships at the end of the next five years,” Collins added. “That is smaller than today’s fleet of 296 ships, and significantly smaller than the Navy’s own requirement of 373 ships.”

The Navy, in a classified report to Congress, determined that it needed a battle force of 373 ships to “meet future campaigning and warfighting demands,” USNI News reported in July last year.

Lawmakers on the committee held the hearing to deliberate on the Navy and Marine Corps’ fiscal 2024 budget request of $255.8 billion, an increase of $11.1 billion from the previous year.

Part of the proposed budget would be spent on buying nine battle force ships, including one Columbia-class submarine, two Virginia-class submarines, two-Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, and two Constellation-class guided-missile frigates.

“I’m also concerned with the contrast to the more than 440 ships that China is expected to have by the year 2030,” Collins added.

China currently maintains the largest navy in the world. According to the Pentagon’s 2022 report on China’s military (pdf), the Chinese Navy has about 340 ships and submarines, including approximately 125 major surface combatants. China will add many more surface combatants in the coming years, the report added, and is expected to reach a total of 440 ships by the end of the decade.

Describing Chinese naval capabilities, the report said that the communist regime’s “New attack submarines and modern surface combatants with anti-air capabilities and fourth-generation naval aircraft are designed to achieve maritime superiority within the First Island Chain to deter and counter any potential third-party intervention in a Taiwan conflict.”

China has threatened to attack Taiwan, a democratic, self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its territory.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaks during the Vision 2024 National Conservative Forum at the Charleston Area Convention Center in Charleston, South Carolina, on March 18, 2023. Logan Cyrus/AFP via Getty Images

Budget

U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, one of three witnesses at the hearing, emphasized that the Navy does acknowledge the threat posed by Beijing.

“We recognize the People’s Republic of China [PRC] as our pacing threat, executing a strategy aimed at upending international order,” Del Toro said.

“The PRC is conducting active, aggressive maritime activities in the South China Sea and beyond that have the potential to undermine our system of international law, including the freedom of the seas, a foundational U.S. interest,” he added, according to his written testimony (pdf).

While answering questions from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Del Toro acknowledged that under the current budget proposal, the U.S. Navy would have 291 ships by 2028, while China would have “upward of 440” ships.

“I will add that our ships are extremely more modern than they ever have been,” Del Toro said.

“Let’s hope so,” Graham replied. “If not, we’re in a world of hurt.”

Collins and Graham took turns questioning how the budget request failed to account for current rates of inflation, with Del Toro telling lawmakers that the budget proposal “is about 2 percent below inflation.”

“The budget request also inadequately accounts for the impact of inflation in investment and readiness accounts,” Collins said. “The Navy’s proposed budget increase of 4.5 percent, which includes the Marine Corps’ 2.6 percent increase, would likely provide less buying power than the FY23-enacted budget after accounting for inflation.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told Graham that a budget plan of five percent above inflation would allow the Navy to get to 373 ships.

“The actual budget is 2% below inflation,” Graham said. “The budget you’re supporting is below inflation, and you’re telling us to get to where we want to go, we’ve got to be above inflation by 5 percent. If this is a good budget, I would hate to see a bad budget.”

From a deterrence perspective, Gilday acknowledged that naval readiness is critical, and that “the bigger [the] fleet, the better.”