Posted on September 29, 2025
Politicians love to talk about supporting blue-collar jobs for their working-class constituents. Well, here comes a good opportunity to do so: A bill in Congress that would help give the American shipbuilding industry a serious shot in the arm.
It could really use one. Several decades ago, there were 180,000 people employed in shipbuilding work, and U.S. shipyards annually secured more than 70 orders for big oceangoing vessels like tankers and cargo ships. Today, there are 70,000 fewer shipbuilding jobs across the country; dozens of major shipyards have closed; and more than 20,500 suppliers that serviced this industry have closed shop. The number of vessels our country now produces per year is in the single digits, accounting for less than 1% of global output.
The global shipbuilding industry is heavily dominated by China, whose shipbuilders build hundreds of oceangoing vessels annually and account for roughly two-thirds of global orders in the coming years. It is deeply concerning that our country is increasingly reliant on Chinese shipbuilding and related maritime infrastructure, from everything from dry docks to ship-to-shore cranes.
That hasn’t happened because the free market is at work. China’s shipbuilding industry is heavily subsidized, full of state-owned enterprises, and built on the back of unfair trade and economic practices. The U.S. Navy believes China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than our own. And while there are lots of reasons for shipbuilding’s decline in the United States, let’s not fool ourselves: China’s gargantuan effort to dominate this industry is the primary reason. Try as we may but we’ll never get any of it back without accounting for the 800-pound gorilla on the ocean.
There’s an obvious national security argument to be made for countering Beijing’s attempts to crowd out global competition. Having robust shipbuilding capacity for all types of vessels is how a country maintains a navy and stays prepared to scale production in a time of conflict. America builds plenty of smaller ships — tugs, workboats and barges — and while our larger destroyers remain world-class, we simply don’t have the capacity to build much of the big stuff anymore. I’m talking about the ships that move not just trade and commerce but also our military in a potential overseas conflict.
But there’s the economic argument, too, because think of what an American-built boat would mean. Among other materials, producing a single commercial oceangoing ship can require tens of thousands of tons of structural steel, tens of thousands of gallons of paint, and hundreds of miles of electrical cable.
Building more boats in the United States would create jobs, yes. Making the boats’ materials would create and support even more of them.
So, what are we going to do about it? Some think the way to fix our shipbuilding deficit is to offshore even more: send shipbuilding work to allies that do it already, like Japan and South Korea — both of which maintain strong shipbuilding capabilities.
But outsourcing our shipbuilding needs into China’s back yard makes no sense. That’s a short-term fix that only exacerbates the long-term problem and complicates the range of solutions. We need to invest here at home, and we need to get started as soon as possible.
The good news is that efforts are underway that are backed by both industry and labor, and both Democrats and Republicans. Last year, a group of labor unions petitioned the government to investigate China’s shipbuilding practices and the obstacles it has created to ever reviving our own industry. The investigation that followed found the petition’s allegations had merit, and the Trump administration, in response, has set up remedies, like docking fees for every big Chinese-built ship that visits a U.S. port. Those fees are set to kick in later this year and will serve to disincentivize shippers from sourcing large oceangoing vessels from China.
Congress is also doing its part, and U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman should get on board. The SHIPS for America Act would funnel those collected port fees on Chinese vessels into shipyards, workers, and other maritime infrastructure so we can begin rebuilding this industry here at home. In effect, it would help our shipbuilding industry begin floating again.
It’s already got significant bipartisan support, and its passage would mean more American-made ships built with American-made materials. It would mean more shipyards and stronger supply chains along our coastlines.
Supporting this bill would mean more jobs in an industry that our country desperately needs.
