- President Trump announced a new White House office to tackle US shipbuilding problems.
- It seems to be a priority for his administration.
- But shipbuilding issues run deep and won’t be solved overnight.
President Donald Trump said that he wants to see the US building a lot of ships very fast. To get there, he’s taking on the military’s shipbuilding problems, and that’s no easy fix.
During his address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, the President announced his goal to “resurrect the American shipbuilding industry,” including both commercial and military sectors. That begins with a new office in the White House focused on shipbuilding, he said.
“We used to make so many ships,” the president said. “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.”
Details on the new initiative were few, though Trump did say that there will be tax incentives aimed at boosting domestic industry. The White House did not offer additional insight when reached by Business Insider.
Trump’s Tuesday announcement shows a desire to fix issues that have long plagued US shipbuilding. For the Navy, the challenges have led to serious cost overruns and delays.
US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Cat Campbell
The industry needs a revitalization, especially as China steps up as a shipbuilding powerhouse, but the problems affecting it run deep. Officials in Washington, DC, the military, and the defense industry have long lamented the complexities of getting shipbuilding back on track.
Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz described American shipbuilding as an “absolute mess.” Key to that assessment are substantial delays and soaring costs.
A Navy review last year found that most of the service’s top programs, such as critical submarines and surface ships, were years behind schedule and over budget.
“One of the things that has held the nation back from building more ships is cost,” Bryan McGrath, a defense and national security consultant and retired Navy commander, told BI. He said the Trump tariffs probably won’t help that situation.
But it’s more than money. America’s shipbuilding woes go back decades to the hollowing out of the industrial base.
Lawmakers, officials, government watchdogs, and experts have all pointed to the decline in shipbuilding after the Cold War, which shrunk domestic industry for both construction of new vessels and maintenance of current ones.
Matt Hildreth/HII
“If we threw a zillion dollars at the Department of the US Navy today, we couldn’t build the ships because we don’t have the industrial base. We’ve got to fix that,” Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said last month.
Trump officials and leadership picks have talked about some of the long-standing industry problems. During his confirmation hearing, the President’s nominee for secretary of the navy, John Phelan, said shipbuilding was a top priority for Trump.
He offered some suggestions for fixing shipbuilding issues, including ideas from the SHIPS Act, incentivizing the private sector to invest in shipyards, and attracting skilled workers to shipbuilding careers through competitive pay.
Shipbuilding industry leaders have noted the workforce concerns. Tom Moore, senior vice president of government relations for Hudson Ingalls Industries, pointed last month to data showing the loss of seasoned workers over the past 30 years. He said that workers today may have only a fraction of the experience of their predecessors.
Past Navy leaders have said there are lessons to be learned from foreign shipyards, like those in Japan and South Korea. In his speech, Trump said he would “bring this industry home” without elaborating on specifics.
US Navy
Though the effort to revitalize US shipbuilding is generally welcomed, McGrath said the push to strengthen both commercial and naval shipbuilding simultaneously “strains credulity” because “trying to scale up to do more of both when there is insufficient workforce” likely won’t work out well.
He suggested focusing the effort on rebuilding the military shipbuilding industry.
An important factor in this discussion, however, may be the administration’s broader policies.
“At the end of the day,” McGrath said, “building the Navy the nation needs is going to be a very expensive undertaking.” If the Trump administration’s shifting worldview changes what’s needed from the Navy, “then all this talk of a larger Navy is noise and wasteful,” he said.
Readying the Navy to meet the challenges posed by China does appear to be a priority and in line with Trump’s “peace through strength” agenda.
The Navy has a 30-year shipbuilding plan that is focused on growing its battle force of 296 crewed ships to 381 by 2045. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this will cost the Navy about $40 billion annually.
