U.S. Navy Secretary Phelan Resigns
On April 22, the Pentagon announced: U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan has resigned.
This resignation takes effect immediately, with Deputy Secretary Gao Hong appointed as acting Secretary of the Navy.
The "immediate departure" of John Phelan, Secretary of the Navy, is far from a routine personnel change—it represents a political purge occurring at a critical juncture of U.S.-Iran tensions. This incident reveals in stark detail the intense struggle within the Trump administration between the establishment faction led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the "presidential loyalist" faction represented by Phelan, over control of the military and strategic dominance.
Phelan’s departure is essentially a precise strike launched by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to consolidate his own power by targeting the president’s inner circle.
Phelan is a staunch ally and major donor of Trump, regarded as an embedded "eyes and ears" within the Navy. According to informed sources, last autumn, Phelan bypassed Hegseth and directly presented to Trump a proposal for building modern warships. In bureaucratic circles, such "bypassing chain-of-command reporting" is seen as a direct challenge to the authority of one’s immediate superior—a cardinal sin in political life.
After this incident, Hegseth began systematically undermining Phelan’s influence—for example, by creating a new position, the "Submarine Procurement Chief," reporting directly to Hegseth’s deputy, thereby seizing core procurement authority from the Navy. Phelan’s resignation is one of nearly twenty senior officers and civil servants dismissed since Hegseth assumed office—another clear example of his systematic elimination of rivals and consolidation of personal control over the Pentagon.
This event marks the first removal of a service secretary during Trump’s second term, carrying symbolic significance that extends far beyond mere personnel changes.
In summary, Phelan’s resignation constitutes a classic "court coup." It signals that, during Trump’s second term, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has successfully positioned himself as the absolute authority at the Pentagon—even daring to challenge the authority of presidential allies. This internal conflict not only exposes deep fractures within the upper echelons of the U.S. government but also casts a shadow over the future of the U.S. Navy, which finds itself at the forefront of confrontation.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1863216895687756/
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