When President Donald Trump took office the Navy had 274 ships. As of June 2020, it has 299. Each time we've looked at this promise, the total of ships and submarines has ticked up.

Congress approved an official goal of 355 ships in late December 2017 — but it set no time frame. It said it should be done "as soon as practicable," and with money "subject to the availability of appropriations." 

The Trump administration has said that reaching the 355-ship goal in 10 years is a top priority, but Congress sets the pace.

The Navy's long-term plan looks to reach the goal by 2048. For aircraft carriers, the priciest item on its list, the Navy would add about one every five years.

The Congressional Research Service noted that in its most recent five-year plan, the Navy scaled back the number of new ships it aimed to acquire. The mix of ships is in play, with more unmanned surface and submarine vessels and smaller ships likely to replace some big-ticket items, such as an aircraft carrier.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to equate the effectiveness of the U.S. Navy with the number of ships that it possesses," said Thomas  Mahnken, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "What matters more is what the capability of those ships are and how they are deployed."

The Navy is on track to add new vessels, but at the current pace, that will take decades, and no one can know whether it will ultimately reach the 350 ships Trump promised. 

We rate this a Compromise.

At the two-year mark of his presidency, Donald Trump's campaign promise to expand the U.S. Navy fleet to 350 ships remains In the Works.

Since our last update, the number of ships has grown by four, now tallying 287 surface ships and submarines, according to Navy data. But the long-term trajectory we previously outlined still holds.

The Navy has plans to expand its fleet, but it will likely take decades to get to 355.

The Navy's long-range ship acquisition plan submitted to Congress last February stated that it planned "to reach a 355-ship fleet by the early FY2050s, potentially quicker with an aggressive investment of resources."

A Navy official previously told us the goal of a larger Navy could be achieved in the 2030s by executing on a more robust shipbuilding plan and extending the service of other ships.

A forthcoming budget and new ship building plan, due out this spring, could alter the shipbuilding timeline. If it does, we'll consider modifying our rating.

But as of now, according to Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "The Navy has not adjusted its long-term shipbuilding plan, and the budget projection hasn't changed" since our last update.

President Donald Trump highlighted his campaign promise to increase the number of Navy ships during his May 25 speech to the U.S. Naval Academy.

"We have now the lowest number of ships that we've had since World War I," Trump said. "And very soon you are going to get to 355 beautiful ships, 355. That's almost a couple of hundred more ships. So you will be around for a long time. We are not running out of equipment. We're not running out of ships. And that has been approved. And we are honored by it." (Here's our round-up of our fact-checks of Trump's speech.)

We have been tracking Trump's campaign promise to build a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines. The Navy's goal for achieving a fleet of 355 ships, up from 308 previously, was announced in December 2016 shortly before Trump took office.

We rated Trump's promise In the Works in April 2017 based on his budget requests.

But getting to 355 ships will not be "very soon."

The Navy currently has 283 ships. The Navy has plans to expand its fleet, but it will likely take decades to get to 355.

The Navy's long-range ship acquisition plan submitted to Congress Feb. 12 stated that it planned "to reach a 355-ship fleet by the early FY2050s, potentially quicker with an aggressive investment of resources."

In April, a Navy official said the goal of a larger Navy could be achieved in the 2030s by executing on a more robust shipbuilding plan and extending the service of other ships.

Todd Harrison, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that building new ships and replacing aging ones is an incremental process.

"There is no 'very soon' about growing the size of the Navy," he said.

Trump's statement that the 355-fleet "has been approved" doesn't tell the full story. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act stated that it "shall be the policy of the United States to have available, as soon as practicable, not fewer than 355 battle force ships."

This year, the Navy budget submission for the five-year defense plan includes a $58.5 billion procurement budget that would buy 54 ships in future years and invest in high-tech systems including unmanned, cyber and directed energy weapons, Navy Lt. Kara Yingling said.

However, Harrison said that Congress has to appropriate the funding annually.

"In any given year, there is a finite amount of money," he said. "The more of it you spend on ship building the less of it that is available for other priorities."

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in March that under the most aggressive scenario the earliest the 355-fleet could be completed is 2028.

"I would argue not what most people consider to be 'very soon,'" said Steve Ellis, vice president for Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The CBO projected that combining that shipbuilding program with service life extension programs for some existing ships would cost an average of $27.5 billion annually.

While the Navy has outlined a roadmap to get to 355-ship fleet, it will take decades to get there and depends on Congressional spending priorities beyond Trump's tenure as president. We will continue to monitor Trump's promise to reach the 350-ship goal.

We rate this promise In the Works.

As part of his plan to make America great, candidate Donald Trump looked to greatly expand the Navy.

"We will build a Navy of 350 surface ships and submarines as recommended by the bipartisan National Defense Panel," he said Sept. 7, 2016.

According to the latest figures, the Navy today has about 275 vessels.