America needs more submarines but Donald Trump wants to buy them at a lower price

REUTERS

Donald Trump wants to buy submarines for America at a lower price

"We're lacking submarines and we're going to build new submarines but the price is too high so I'm cutting the prices way down," Mr Trump said in an interview on Fox News.

Two US-based companies, General Dynamics Corp's Electric Boat division and Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding, build the Navy's nuclear-powered submarines.

Neither General Dynamics nor Huntington Ingalls immediately responded to a request for comment.

I'm cutting the prices way down

President Donald Trump

"We are working hard to drive down cost and are seeing the fruits of that labor," a senior US Navy official said in response to the Trump comments.

"We have the most advanced submarines in the world - the more we buy, the more we will bring down the price," the official said.

President Trump, who took office on Friday, has vowed to build up the military, which he says has become dangerously depleted.

GETTY

President Trump has vowed to build up the military

Mexico Wall: Trump gives the go ahead
Thu, January 26, 2017

The structures, fences and walls that mark the border between the United States and Mexico as President Donald Trump reiterates his promise to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

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Combo with images of the border fence between Mexico and the U.S. taken in the states of Sonora and Baja California, Mexico, and in the states of Arizona and California, U.S., between July 2, 2016 and January 25, 2017.

Since winning the November election, he has pressured US defence contractors to reduce the cost of the products they sell to the Pentagon.

In December, he received a pledge from the chief executive of Lockheed Martin to cut the cost of the F-35 fighter jet after the president complained in a tweet about the plane's price tag and said he would ask Boeing to offer a cheaper alternative.

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