Posted on November 4, 2025
After pledging to restore America’s maritime might, the president has gutted the very offices, funding streams, and foreign partnerships that could have made it possible.
When Donald Trump returned to the White House last January, one of his earliest declarations was that the United States would begin building ships “very fast, very soon.” But in the ten months since his inauguration, the administration’s actions have not laid the groundwork for a shipbuilding revival. If anything, they have actively undermined the industry’s prospects.
Unlike many of Trump’s other policy priorities, this one at least addresses a worthy cause. A strong maritime sector underpins everything from trade resilience to military readiness. Merchant ships transport critical cargoes across oceans, transport aid during disasters, and sustain the skilled mariners that the military relies on for sealift in wartime. Yet decades of decline have left American yards with a sliver of the global market, old infrastructure, and a shrinking workforce.
At first, Trump appeared to recognize the scale of the problem. In March, the administration announced the creation of the Office of Shipbuilding within the National Security Council, billed as the centerpiece of a broader maritime strategy. The following month, an executive order raised hopes for a coordinated industrial policy and a whole-of-government approach. But within months, that effort had collapsed.
Mike Waltz, the former national security adviser and a central architect of Trump’s shipbuilding executive order, was pushed out for his role in Signalgate, the scandal in which Waltz erroneously added the editor in chief of The Atlantic to a group chat where top administration officials were discussing imminent plans to bomb Yemen. Soon after, Ian Bennitt, the senior director tapped to lead the shipbuilding office, resigned. And because of Trump’s cuts to the NSC, five of seven staffers in the shipbuilding office soon followed. Then, in a clear sign that maritime strategy was no longer a priority, the office was quietly downgraded, moved out of the NSC, and folded into the Office of Management and Budget.
At the same time, the Maritime Administration, the federal agency most directly responsible for supporting U.S. shipping, remains leaderless. So far, no administrator has been confirmed. Without permanent leadership, MARAD has been unable to set priorities and goals, press for needed resources, or reassure industry stakeholders about the administration’s seriousness.
A recent Government Accountability Office report underscored the problem, noting that MARAD “cannot determine to what extent [its] programs are effective in growing the U.S. maritime fleet because it has not established measurable goals … or assessed the performance” of its programs. The absence of leadership has prevented the government from exercising its powers to grow maritime capacity.
That leadership vacuum extends into the training pipeline. The United States currently faces a shortage of thousands of mariners. Nonetheless, the administration has done little to strengthen the maritime pipeline. At the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, the nation’s primary training ground for sealift officers, conditions have deteriorated. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has publicly acknowledged problems ranging from months without hot water in students’ showers to a crumbling library and dorms riddled with mold. But rather than moving swiftly to stabilize the institution, the administration has left the academy without permanent leadership in its top three positions. A school critical to producing the next generation of mariners risks falling further behind, undermining the very workforce any maritime revival depends on.
Trump-led appropriations bills have also starved maritime capacity. In Trump’s most recent appropriations bill, the Small Shipyard Grant Program, one of the few federal mechanisms for helping grow shipbuilding capacity, received $8.75 million, a record low and less than half of the $21 million it received during the Biden administration.
For shipyards competing against heavily subsidized foreign rivals, these grants often determine whether they can afford to modernize equipment like cranes and welding machines or fall further behind. Demand for the grants has consistently exceeded supply, with applications surpassing available funds by more than five times. Underfunding the program not only reduces its effectiveness but also signals a retreat at a time when foreign shipyards are receiving significant government support.
The administration’s erratic policies have also discouraged foreign allies from stepping up to fill the shipbuilding gap. After one of South Korea’s largest shipbuilders, Hanwha Ocean, acquired Philadelphia Shipyard in 2024, Seoul appeared ready to make substantial investments to modernize American yards and train American workers. In fact, during recent bilateral trade negotiations, South Korea signed a nonbinding agreement to direct $150 billion toward U.S. shipbuilding. But Trump quickly undercut the deal. His administration staged a highly publicized immigration raid at a Georgia battery plant operated by South Korean firms, sparking diplomatic tensions and casting significant doubt on the future of the shipbuilding investment.
Perhaps Trump’s most damaging decisions concern future demand. Historically, American shipyards have thrived during periods of maritime innovation. During World War II, for example, the United States developed oil-powered ships to reduce reliance on British coaling stations. During the early Vietnam War era, the U.S. developed containerization to speed loading and unloading cargo. In the 1960s and ’70s, it developed and built new ship designs, such as the so-called lighter aboard ship, using a new intermodal concept that allowed larger vessels to carry smaller ships on their decks to allow for more efficient cargo transportation. The U.S. also built ships that could carry liquified natural gas.
A similar opportunity is emerging with “green shipping.” Spurred by the International Maritime Organization’s proposed rules on decarbonization, a wave of orders for cleaner ships is expected in the coming decade. But rather than positioning U.S. yards to compete, Trump is pressuring IMO member nations to scuttle the regulations, eliminating a potential opportunity for the United States to break into the shipbuilding sector. Without new maritime innovation, the U.S. will struggle to enter the current shipbuilding market, on which China has a firm grasp.
Offshore wind tells a similar story. Under the Biden administration, demand for clean energy spurred U.S. yards to build the specialized vessels the sector requires. For example, a Texas yard completed the nation’s first wind turbine installation vessel, while a Louisiana yard delivered a ship designed to bury the undersea cables that connect offshore farms to the grid. These projects showed how new industries can generate steady work for U.S. shipbuilders. Yet Trump’s rollback of offshore wind programs has abruptly stalled that momentum. With projects canceled or delayed, yards now face shrinking demand for these vessels, casting serious doubt on whether the sector can provide steady work for American builders.
Trump’s other reckless actions have had significant impacts. For example, the decision to freeze foreign food aid eliminated reliable cargoes for U.S.-flag vessels. That cargo has supplied humanitarian assistance abroad, keeping ships active and mariners employed at home. Instead, critical food aid rotted in warehouses across the United States, while vessels that carried food aid were forced to idle, sidelining mariners. A knock-on effect of sidelining mariners is reducing military readiness. The armed forces depend on commercial mariners and ships to supplement their sealift fleet. As that pool shrinks, so does military readiness.
Trump’s attempts at revival have been far short of the comprehensive approach needed to revive the maritime industry. He has proposed imposing high fees on Chinese-built and -owned ships calling at U.S. ports. But while these have reduced the Chinese share of the new-build market, they have done little to build domestic capacity. Without consistent demand and supply-side investment from the federal government, the slew of port fees will add little new maritime capacity. The pattern that emerges is one of both neglect and contradiction. The administration has launched offices only to defang them, promised investment only to undercut it, and pointed to growth opportunities only to foreclose them.
Reviving shipbuilding is achievable. Other advanced economies have sustained competitive industries through predictable investment, robust workforce training, and long-term alignment with global demand trends. China, for example, leveraged decades of government support and industrial planning to become a shipbuilding powerhouse. Trump’s approach has offered the opposite. An industry vital to economic security and national defense lacks clear direction or reliable support. Trump’s declaration that America would soon build ships hasn’t led to action. Instead, his policies have made a revival less likely.
