In his address to Congress this week, President Trump announced a focus on reviving the U.S. shipbuilding industry, which lags far behind Chinese shipbuilding (FoxBusiness, March 5, 2025).
“To boost our defense industrial base, we are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding,” Trump said. “And for that purpose, I am announcing tonight that we will create a new office of shipbuilding in the White House and offer special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America where it belongs.
“We used it 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.”
China scholar Gordon Chang thinks Trump is going in the right direction.
“We need to build ships in the United States. We need to be resilient, and we cannot rely on others, and this office of shipbuilding in the White House is a critical signal, and it’s a very good one.”…
China currently dominates the industry, accounting for more than half the world’s tonnage. China also boasts advantages in other areas, Chang said, including with technologies like hypersonic cruise missiles and rapidly-improving ships, though he believes the U.S. still boasts the “best military in the world.”…
The Trump administration is also reportedly drafting an executive order that includes 18 measures aimed at supporting U.S. shipbuilders, including raising fees on Chinese-built ships and cranes that enter the U.S.
Other provisions in the order include higher pay for workers at nuclear shipyards and a directive for the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to review procurement processes for the Navy and other agencies, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Ship Universe reports that in 2024, Chinese companies won three quarters of new shipbuilding orders worldwide. In 2000, China’s share of the global shipbuilding market was about 5%; by 2023 its market share was over 50%.
Before Trump’s announcement last Tuesday, his new administration had proposed a massive increase in port fees on ships built in China and on Chinese ship operators: “a $1 million per U.S. port call fee on Chinese vessel operators and a $1.5 million fee per U.S. port call for Chinese-built vessels. A service fee would be instituted on each U.S. port call by vessel operators, regardless of their nationality or vessel flag, with vessels on order from Chinese shipyards.”
If the new port fees are implemented, they are bound to discourage the use of China-built ships to bring goods to U.S. ports…except to the extent that the fees are somehow evaded. Can the provenance of a ship that was manufactured in China be disguised?
Also see:
U.S. Naval Institute: “Chinese Shipbuilding: Growing Fast, But How Good Is It?”
