On Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, the Baltimore Banner published information on Trump’s visit to Sparrows Point the following Tuesday. The purpose of the visit was explicit: to deliver remarks at Tradepoint Atlantic, which had been in talks with Anduril Industries, days after War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement of the Autonomous Warfare Command.
The implications were clear: a confluence of the most rabid elements the military-industrial complex has to offer and a potential new profit-making venture between them. The event signaled something dangerous for the global working class.
The people’s movement demands money for jobs, not for war
Baltimore’s People’s Power Assembly moved quickly to call a protest. Organizations like the International League of Peoples’ Struggle Baltimore-DMV, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective DMV, Free State Coalition, Indivisible Baltimore City and Baltimore County, and many others supported the initiative and united around the main demands: Trump out now; shut down Anduril Industries; and money for jobs, health care, and education, not for war, genocide, and occupation.
Trump was scheduled to speak at 4 p.m. on Oct. 6. The People’s Power Assembly called the protest for 3 p.m. and aimed to stage as close as possible to Tradepoint Atlantic’s West Gate. Despite the difficult time and location, about 50 showed up to raise their opposition.
A bused-in group of 30 Trump supporters stayed on the opposite side of the street from protestors, hoping to catch a glimpse of their president. Both groups would be disappointed, as they would later learn that – although the Secret Service and the police shut down roads for more than three miles in every direction – Trump flew into the site.
Though the White House professes Trump’s popularity, the reality is that they needed to shut down roads for miles and surround him with Navy sailors and midshipmen for his “security.”
What Trump announced, and what the press left out
Some Baltimore news stations spun Trump’s visit as a “jobs announcement.” The reports afterward barely mentioned more than the construction of a new shipyard where Anduril Industries would be building submarines. Strange, considering the White House published the full remarks to their YouTube channel.
The speakers at the event were Brian Schimpf, CEO of Anduril Industries; Navy Vice Admiral Robert Gaucher; Hung Cao, Acting Secretary of the Navy; Pete Hegseth, Secretary of the War Department; and of course, Trump.
The group of this country’s top brass gathered hundreds of naval officers to announce the beginning of the construction of a shipyard they are calling Arsenal 2: a two million square foot manufacturing facility that will build what Trump is calling his Golden Fleet. Specifically, this will be a fleet of ballistic missile nuclear submarines. Navy Vice Admiral Robert Goucher described them as “our ocean’s apex predators.” But moving forward, using Anduril’s artificial intelligence capacity, these submarines can be operated remotely and use AI weapons targeting.
Most of the speakers were explicit about their need for a fleet of Virginia-class attack submarines and the current lack of manufacturing capacity for them. “To maintain our undersea advantage, we must reach and exceed a production cadence of one Columbia and two Virginia hulls per year,” said Vice Admiral Goucher. “Today, we deliver about half of the tonnage we need.”
Trump and acting secretary of the Navy Hung Cao both boasted of their supposed military defeat of Iran. The opposite is true. What the opening of Arsenal 2 really exposes is that the United States ruling class learned a lesson from getting whooped in the Strait of Hormuz — they needed these submarines yesterday.
Unsurprisingly, for essentially what was more of a Navy pep rally, Trump’s appointees demonstrated their bloodthirsty military posture — the posture of an imperialist power in crisis and feeling threatened, not one of strength.
Pete Hegseth opened his speech with: “Greetings from the War Department, where wokeness and weakness are out.” Exalting his president, he said: “He demands peace through strength. That peace through strength requires military power.” And later: “An arsenal of freedom. All for victory on the battlefield and to enable peace right here at home. America First, ushering in the new golden age to include a beautiful new Golden Fleet.”
Hung Cao declared that the groundbreaking of Arsenal 2 sends a message to adversaries of the United States that the “American technological machine is fully awake, fully armed, and ready to fight. You can run, but you’ll only die tired.” And then, metaphorically foaming at the mouth: “But you know what? If you piss us off, we’re going to sneak into your country in the middle of night and snatch you and your wife while you sleep in your beds.”
But it is not only this vicious military posture that is so dangerous for workers at home and abroad. A fleet of AI submarines represents a deadly new armament for United States imperialism. The “Golden Fleet” threatens peace and self-determination abroad, and profit for Anduril means more capacity to use AI-powered surveillance and repression at home.
What jobs?
The White House insists that Arsenal 2 will create 3,100 jobs directly and thousands more indirectly.
But it is exactly Trump’s ilk that drove Bethlehem Steel’s 30,000 jobs from Sparrows Point in the first place. The workers at Bethlehem Steel’s shipyard made union wages and had union benefits. Workers in Baltimore could own a home and take care of their families with those jobs. But in the constant pursuit of superprofits, the ruling class pushed those jobs overseas.
This is exactly the gun that workers are under — especially in Baltimore, a city that the capitalists have already ravaged, deindustrialized, hyperexploited, and overpoliced. The capitalist system makes us choose: do you want a job building weapons for war, or do you want to live in poverty?
The Democratic Governor’s political theater
Maryland’s Democrat governor, Wes Moore, made hay that he was not invited to the event. Maryland press outlets played along. At the same time, Moore is making full claim to have facilitated the deal with Anduril.
On the governor’s website and YouTube channel, Moore announces the deal with Anduril, boasting that the deal brings over $3.7 billion in investments to Maryland.
The reality is that it brings $3.7 billion in investments to the war profiteers, who will see an even bigger return on investment, and not to the people of Maryland.
It’s not a done deal — a struggle can be mounted
Baltimore and Maryland’s working-class forces can still unite against Arsenal 2. Just because the deals are penned, and the signatures still wet, does not mean the working class cannot intervene. We can call for boycotts of the jobs; for truckers to refuse delivery to the facilities; for the construction industry to refuse to build. We can put pressure on public officials to stall or scrap the deal.
The workers of Baltimore and Maryland are the ones who actually built the wealth created at Sparrows Point. We have the real claim to the land that Arsenal 2 will sit on. We have the right to occupy it.
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