While the American maritime power is being fooled and China’s influence on the high seas continues to grow, experts say President Donald Trump’s new “shipyard” is a key first step towards the US regaining its naval prowess.
In a joint speech to Congress in March, Trump announced that he would set up an office with the intention of reviving both American commercial and military shipbuilding. The US continues to outperform the US while China is in the tragic straits of the maritime powers while its manufacturing hubs continue to shrink, and experts have told the Daily Callenor News Foundation that control of Beijing poses serious national security risks.
“The US ranks 14th in the world. Colin Gabrow, policy analyst at Cato Institute, told DCNF. “Look at the data from the last five years. The US is behind the small Norway and the Netherlands countries. We are quite behind.” (Related: “The Smartest Man in the Room”: Meet Trump, who just led America’s best military office)
Container Gantry Cranes can be found on February 27, 2025 in Hamburg, Germany, at the container terminal “Eurogate” at the port of Hamburg Port in northern Germany. (Photo: Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images)
Currently, the office is in the planning stage and will still be officially created in the draft stage by executive order. According to To US Navy Institute News (USNI). The National Security Council will lead the office.
According to the USNI, US trade representatives and secretaries of defense, commercial, state, state, transportation and homeland security will come six months after the order signed to draft a plan to revive American shipbuilding. The order also calls for an investigation into China’s “unfair targeting of the maritime logistics and shipbuilding sector.”
China’s market share for industries such as high-tech ships, maritime engineering equipment and “green” shipyards have all grown since 2011, urging Beijing to set even more ambitious targets. As a result, China’s shipbuilding market share has increased from about 5% in 2000 to more than 50% today.
“They have the world’s largest shipbuilding industry, and many of our allies rely on Chinese shipyards to repair and build commercial vessels,” Brent Sadler, a senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation, told DCNF. “So, in many ways, the Chinese control the terms of trade.”
China also has great advantages in military shipbuilding, line up In 2020, the US Navy’s total ships consisted of 360 ships, compared to just 296 in the US fleet. According to Go to the January Parliamentary Research Services (CRS) report. US naval vessel buildings suffer from massive delays, with some contractors extending ship delivery deadlines by up to three years.
The national security impact of commercial shipbuilding is also obvious, but worth considering, Gabrow said.
“This is perceived as a national security vulnerability,” Gabrow told DCNF. “You want to have a lively and vibrant cargo industry with military utility to repair and build ships during wartime. I think it’s the mentality that needs to turn this around, so it’s about establishing the Shipbuilding Authority.”
The wider US industrial bases fell with maritime production, with manufacturing jobs falling from a history-high 19.6 million jobs in 1979 to just 12.8 million jobs in 2019. According to to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“In my view, Senior Navy and Arms Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office, Dr. Eric Labos, Dr. Eric Labos, Dr. Eric Labos, Dr. Eric Labos, Dr. Eric Labos and Dr. Eric Labos, “In my opinion, nothing important is important.” I said House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. “For years, recruiting in the yards has been tough. It’s even more difficult to hold.”
Shipbuilding work has been effectively wiped out in the US, Reduction McKinsey’s report is almost 80% since the 1950s, and the number of large shipyards has also declined at roughly the same speed.
“It’s more than just a ship building,” Sadler told DCNF. “I think it’s a maritime industrial base, which is vessel buildings, transport, port infrastructure, naval vessel buildings and repairs. But what’s missing is that this is what the president got in his speech, perhaps we need something like a “maritime emperor” that can be coordinated by the National Economic Council.
One of the first steps the office should implement is the renewal of National Security Directive 28, issued in 1989. It was intended to combat the rising threat of the Soviet Union in maritime power, Sadler said.
“I would have been signed by the President. It would make it very clear what the priorities of this industrial base are, and then some very clear goals set afterwards,” Sadler told DCNF. “How many ships will we get? We will meet the need to have a tanker in the Navy, and who will be responsible? We will not only submit plans, but we will just submit “I want a lot of this ship a year.” ”
“President Trump has been debating for a long time about rebuilding America’s shipbuilding capabilities,” White House deputy reporter Anna Kelly told DCNF. “However, the White House has no official announcement at this time.”
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