And the US is trusted with nuclear weapons.

There's a non zero chance Trump does try to 'win' this with nukes. Apart from the narcissism he gives every impression of not just being a "if I have a hammer, every problem can be solved with nails" type guy, but also a "if I have a hammer it has to be used, or it is worthless" type guy.

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Can they be used on civilian ships or is it only for military use?

You can stick pretty much anything on a civilian ship, with enough work*. In that case, you'd presumably lift a vehicle with it onto the ships then take them off at the end to swap onto a ship going the other way, which seems simple enough. Though given the information on its effectiveness comes from the manufacturer some mild skepticism about its stated capabilities is warranted. Especially so if it's actually been rejected (given it's microwaves, is it massively less effective if it's, well, raining for example?).

We have no idea how the system copes with swell (probably ok, on a big tanker, on a smaller cargo ship though?) and especially salt water. Which will mess things up far worse than fresh water might.

*Germans stuck ~light cruiser level load outs on modified freighters in WW2 for example, and they had to be clandestine. Good enough that the Kormoran sank a heavy cruiser, albeit they wouldn't have had a chance if the cruiser had been sensible.