Shipbuilding Is A Matter of National Security
Last week saw flurries of activity in Washington, D.C., as organizations involved in American shipbuilding met with officials and lobbied in the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement in his March 4 address to Congress that he wanted to establish an Office of Shipbuilding to support domestic shipbuilders.
“We are going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding,” Trump told Congress. “We used to make so many ships. We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact to further enhance our national security.”
It was a welcome announcement, but ramping up programs to support shipbuilding is a big lift.
Matt Paxton, president of the Shipbuilder’s Council of America, said, “We applaud the creation of the White House Office of Shipbuilding and the entire shipyard industrial base not only stands at the ready to work with the new Office of U.S. Shipbuilding, but we are also ready to answer the call to design and build America’s commercial and military fleets.”
The president is responding to the challenge of China, which has spared no government expense in quickly growing its dockyard and shipbuilding capabilities in a bid to capture world shipbuilding markets from low-cost competitors elsewhere in Asia.
A report released March 9 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies says that China now controls about half of the world’s commercial shipbuilding market, while the United States has only 0.1 percent. In 2014 alone, according to the Associate Press, one Chinese shipbuilder built more commercial vessels by tonnage than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has built since the end of World War II.
A draft document is circulating in Washington that will outline details of Trump’s plan. We expect it may include some of the proposals that have been put forward in the SHIPS for America Act and precursor bills. It’s a heavy lift that will require sustained effort over many years and cooperation by many players. We applaud the intention to revive American shipbuilding, and we hope that inland shipyards are part of the conversation around this issue as details are worked out.
