President Donald Trump has vowed to lead a revival in U.S. shipbuilding, but the success of this manufacturing renaissance in a key sector for national security will rely on the expertise from overseas.
The administration’s goal of a shipbuilding boom is a part of Trump’s “Make America Great” policy agenda. Trump signed an executive order in April to bolster the shipbuilding industry, but many industry executives have warned it won’t be easy given the current state of the domestic industry, and foreign investment and collaboration are key. The Trump administration’s “Make American Shipyards Great Again” initiative is looking to build out liquified natural gas tankers, polar ice-breakers, and Navy vessels.
“The American shipbuilding industry saw a boom twice in the past 110 years,” Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at Xeneta, tells CNBC. “The first boom was during World War I, the second, World War II,” he said.
China, which has roughly 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the U.S., dominates the global commercial shipbuilding industry. The U.S. presently has eight active shipyards. China has over 300.
The Trump administration’s shipbuilding plan is an extension of an investigation into Chinese shipbuilding by the United States Trade Representative under the Biden and Trump administrations. The USTR 301 investigation found the Chinese government has bolstered its shipbuilding dominance through the use of significant subsidies and designating the industry as strategic. The investigation said the acts, policies, and practices were “unreasonable and burden or restrict U.S. commerce.”
