President Donald Trump aims to revitalize the American shipbuilding industry, which has fallen far behind its competitors in the People’s Republic of China, with a new policy he signed on April 9. The executive order’s emphasis on the need to strengthen “commercial shipbuilding capacity and maritime workforce” reflects long-standing concerns among defense manufacturers in the sector.
At a hearing with Navy leaders before the Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee on April 8, service officials voiced deep concern about stagnant shipbuilding and its potential negative impact on success in major power conflicts. Navy officials announced in March 2024 a goal to increase the fleet of warships to 30 over the next 381 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The ambitious plan would require an investment of at least $40 billion per year. The fleet, which currently has fewer than 300 warships, is expected to shrink further in the coming years. Current projections suggest the Navy will retire about a dozen more ships than it expects to commission by 2027.
Officials with the nonprofit Navy Association also called on Congress to increase funding for public shipyards and Coast Guard icebreakers, stressing the need to expand the service’s fleet in a policy statement in February. Achieving shipbuilding and ship maintenance goals requires hiring about 250.000 skilled or well-paid workers over the next decade, according to Matthew Sermon, the direct reporting manager for the Navy’s naval industrial base program. Speaking at the April 9 hearing, Sermon said the Navy aims to expand supply chain capacity, partner with government and private organizations and address workforce challenges.
“Simply put, we need more ships delivered on time and on budget, and we are facing challenges in both areas. Costs are rising faster than inflation, and schedules on multiple programs are running one to three years behind,” Dr. Brett Seidle, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
On the same day that Seidle testified, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report calling for sweeping changes in U.S. shipbuilding to meet the 381-ship goal. The report noted that the Navy had failed to grow its fleet in the past 20 years despite doubling its shipbuilding budget. GAO director Shelby Oakley said Navy ships cost billions of dollars more than planned, took years to build, and often fell short of quality and performance expectations.
Speaking of an industry that the GAO described as being in a “permanent state of emergency,” President Trump decried how “decades of government neglect have led to the decline of a once-strong industrial base while strengthening our competitors and eroding the national security of the United States.”
In response to the April 9 executive order, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Affairs Mike Waltz was instructed to submit an action plan to the president within 210 days. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is also expected to review different avenues for private capital investment in commercial and defense shipbuilding capabilities, supply chains, port infrastructure, workforce and ship repair.
Meanwhile, Navy leaders are assessing shipbuilding targets, among other things, striving to increase annual production of ballistic and fast-attack submarines to counter imminent threats in potential conflict zones such as the Indo-Pacific and the Arctic. The state of the U.S. shipbuilding sector is currently affecting not only U.S. ship deliveries but also Australia’s demand for Virginia-class submarines under the trilateral AUKUS security agreement. The Navy aims to deliver one Columbia-class and two Virginia-class submarines per year, while the AUKUS commitments have increased annual demand for Virginia-class boats to 2,33, said Rear Admiral Jonathan Rucker, the attack submarine program manager.
These requests coincide with ongoing production issues related to the Navy’s first Columbia-class submarine, the USS District of Columbia, which is planned to replace the Ohio-class. Production of that submarine is currently delayed by up to 18 months. Rear Adm. Todd Weeks, the Navy’s strategic submarine program manager, has emphasized that this delay is unacceptable and that the Columbia class is the Navy’s No. 1 acquisition priority.
The slow pace of U.S. submarine and surface ship production has raised concerns about whether the U.S. can replace disabled or sunken ships in close combat. Senator Tim Sheehy has said that in a conflict, ship losses are likely and that it is vital to replace these losses at a faster rate than the enemy.
The Navy recently commissioned the Virginia-class attack submarine Iowa. Officials said two additional Virginia-class submarines, the Massachusetts and Idaho, are expected to be delivered this year. The Coast Guard also in December commissioned its first polar icebreaker in a quarter-century. The development is critical for use in the Arctic, where military activity is increasing. The U.S. has been urged for years by military officials and lawmakers to devote more resources to the rapidly changing Arctic environment. Recent regional cooperation between China and Russia makes that even more urgent. Pentagon officials say Beijing is increasingly looking to the Arctic as an area to advance China’s power claims and economic resources.
