Posted on March 11, 2026
By Mike Schuler
U.S. Maritime Administrator Stephen Carmel warned Tuesday that rebuilding American maritime power will require far more than simply expanding shipyard capacity, arguing that the United States must rebuild an entire maritime ecosystem if it hopes to compete globally.
Speaking at the CMA Shipping conference in Stamford, Connecticut, Carmel opened with a stark statistic about the state of U.S. shipbuilding.
“Today the United States produces about 0.1% of global commercial shipbuilding,” Carmel told industry leaders. “It’s hard to comprehend a number that small unless you compare it to something else — for example, U.S. shipbuilding for the export market today is exactly zero.”
But Carmel said focusing solely on shipyards misses the larger structural problem.
“Shipbuilding does not lead to maritime power. Maritime systems do. Shipbuilding follows cargo, cargo follows logistics networks, logistics networks follow ports and trade architecture,” he said.
“If we want to rebuild American maritime capability, we cannot think about ships in isolation. We have to think about the system that produces ships — or more importantly, produces demand for ships.”
Carmel pointed to historical examples to illustrate how systemic innovations have reshaped global shipping. He cited Jeremiah Thompson, founder of the Black Ball Line in the early 19th century, who introduced the world’s first scheduled liner service between New York and Liverpool.
“For the first time ships sailed on fixed schedules whether their holds were full or not,” Carmel said. “That predictability created trust. Trust created cargo. Cargo created fleets. And fleets created shipbuilding.”
More than a century later, Carmel said, Malcolm McLean triggered another transformation with the development of containerized shipping.
“McLean didn’t invent the steel box, the crane, or even the containership,” Carmel said. “What he did was organize existing technologies into a new system that could scale globally.”
According to Carmel, the maritime industry is once again entering a period of profound system-level disruption.
“The world the maritime industry operates in is becoming increasingly unstable,” he said, citing pandemic supply chain shocks, war in Europe, attacks on shipping at key chokepoints, and rising geopolitical competition.
“In that kind of environment, prediction becomes very difficult,” Carmel said. “The question is no longer simply what the future will look like. The more important question is how far out we can see and how quickly we can pivot when it changes.”
He argued that resilience and adaptability are becoming as important as efficiency for global shipping networks.
Carmel framed the U.S. government’s Maritime Action Plan as an attempt to rebuild the broader maritime system rather than simply increase shipbuilding output.
“At its core, the plan is not a shipbuilding plan,” Carmel said. “It is an effort to rebuild the entire maritime ecosystem — cargo generation, resilient logistics architecture, a revitalized maritime workforce, modernized shipbuilding and ship repair capacity, and an innovation ecosystem capable of driving the next generation of maritime technology.”
The remarks also highlighted the scale of global competition, particularly from China.
“Today China produces roughly half the world’s commercial ships,” Carmel noted. “But China did not achieve that position simply by building shipyards. China built a maritime system — shipyards, logistics companies, state financing, industrial policy, and a deliberately cultivated workforce.”
Maritime power, Carmel argued, ultimately rests on people working across that system.
“It rests on engineers who design ships, steelworkers who build them, mariners who operate them, and logisticians who move cargo across global networks — all working together inside a national industrial system.”
Carmel also pointed to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, digitalization, and small modular nuclear reactors as potential catalysts for the next transformation in maritime logistics.
“Maritime innovation rarely occurs simply because a new technology appears,” he said. “It occurs when technology becomes part of a new system architecture.”
Looking ahead, Carmel said the next era of shipping will be shaped by those who build the next integrated maritime system.
“The future of our industry will ultimately be determined not by a single technology or a single regulation,” he said. “It will be determined by where capital, capability, and people converge to build the next maritime system.”
He concluded with a warning for policymakers and industry leaders alike.
“The time for studies and hearings is passing,” Carmel said. “We must transition to doing rather than studying — or we will soon be having hearings not about how to achieve maritime dominance, but how to live without it.”
