America’s shipbuilding capacity is a national security imperative.

Bipartisan policymakers, defense experts, and maritime industry veterans agree that the U.S. shipbuilding base is at a critical crossroads. After decades of decline, our commercial and naval shipyards have been outpaced by our adversaries—most notably the Chinese Communist Party, whose industrial capacity now dwarfs our own.

America is losing ground: Shipyards in the United States built five (5) ships in 2024 compared to over two hundred and fifty (+250) constructed in China’s shipyards. With aging fleets, outdated infrastructure, and shrinking industrial capacity, the time for incremental change has passed. We must reestablish domestic production at scale—now.

U.S. Naval Institute: The Nation Needs a Shipbuilding Revolution

Captain Brent D. Sadler, U.S. Navy (Retired), U.S. DOT Maritime Administrator (MARAD)

“The U.S. Navy is in a fight for survival, a quickening battle being waged from the halls of the Pentagon to the boardrooms of industry to hearings on Capitol Hill. The consequence of this contest will determine if the nation is destined for maritime irrelevance and the laying of its prosperity at the whims of autocrats a world away. At the core of the battle are these questions: What sort of Navy does the nation need; and how can it be built?”

Read more from Captain Brent D. Sadler on the existential need to rebuild the nation’s Navy.

Read the full essay

DOD: Navy Intends to Ramp Up Shipbuilding Through Collaborative Efforts

Department of Defense

“At a time when adversaries around the globe challenge the maritime commons, the U.S. shipbuilding industry is challenged to produce the quantity of ships at the rate required.

Cost and schedule performance remain challenging with deliveries approximately one to three years late and cost rising faster than overall inflation. These issues are prevalent across the nuclear and conventional shipbuilding communities with both the Navy and industry sharing responsibility.”

Read the DOD news release

CSIS: Navigating the Risks of China’s Dual-Use Shipyards

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Report by Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart, and Aidan Powers-Riggs

“China has emerged as the undisputed leader of the global shipbuilding industry. Over 300 shipyards dot China’s seaboard, churning out more than half of the world’s commercial vessels each year. These shipyards build the merchant ships that power global trade, but many are also charged with building China’s rapidly expanding navy…

In underwriting the growth of China’s military and economic power, they risk marginalizing U.S. and allied competitiveness in a key industry and undermining peace and security in the Indo-Pacific.”

Read the full report

How China’s $100B+ Shipbuilding Empire Dominates the U.S.’s

| WSJ U.S. vs. China

CSIS: China has emerged as the undisputed leader of the global shipbuilding industry.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the navy of the Chinese Communist Party, is already the world’s largest navy by ship count, and the gap between it and the U.S. Navy is expected to grow in the coming years.

An even deeper challenge lurks beneath the surface. China has built its naval industrial base atop its sprawling commercial shipbuilding sector that dwarfs that of the United States, giving it a staggering advantage in shipyard capacity.

China’s dual-use shipbuilding industry has far surpassed US shipbuilding capacity (CSIS)

“An even deeper challenge lurks beneath the surface. China has built its naval industrial base atop its sprawling commercial shipbuilding sector that dwarfs that of the United States, giving it a staggering advantage in shipyard capacity.”
“Shipyards across the United States built just five large ocean-going merchant vessels in 2024, combining to a volume of 76,000 gross tons (GT).”
“In the same year, just one Chinese shipbuilder, the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), delivered over 250 ships, adding up to a staggering 14 million GT.”

Full report and analysis

Vice President JD Vance on Shipbuilding at the American Dynamism Summit

| White House

CSIS: Rebuilding America’s Maritime Strength with Senator Kelly and Congressman Waltz

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Interview with Senator Kelly and Congressman Waltz

“Last year, 2023, China received over 1,500 new orders for new ships. The United States received five. The largest shipyard in China could fit every shipyard in the United States inside it and is producing more ships and then, you know, by – comparably the largest shipyard in South Korea, Hyundai, is producing 40 to 50 ships a year. Again, the United States produced five…

They literally could turn off our entire economy by essentially choking off that shipping fleet and, conversely, turn theirs into warships or into levers of geopolitical influence. It’s just completely unacceptable. And we have to stop admiring the problem and stop complaining about the problem. And I think, as Senator Kelly and I are trying to do, start chipping away at it and digging us out of this hole.”

Read the full interview