Maritime Action Plan Highlights Washington’s Misplaced Shipbuilding Obsession in Shipbuilding News 23/02/2026 On the eve of President’s Day weekend, the Trump administration released its long-awaited Maritime Action Plan (MAP), billed as a sweeping blueprint for reversing decades of US maritime decline. One of its core goals: resuscitating a commercial shipbuilding industry that has fallen into a near-total collapse. To that end, the plan calls for a broad mix of subsidies, new fees, and mandates designed to coerce demand toward US shipyards. Such logic is neither new nor uncontested. In a recent essay published by the Center for International Maritime Security, I examined similarly motivated legislative proposals now circulating in Washington and argued that they would impose substantial costs while failing to address the maritime challenges that actually matter. Many of those critiques apply equally to the MAP. A Chasm of Competitiveness The MAP declares that its objective is not merely to increase the number of ships built in the United States but to reconstitute an industrial base capable of “competitive international performance.” It further emphasizes the importance of constructing large, oceangoing commercial ships—the workhorses of global trade—rather than small craft or niche vessels. It’s a vision sharply at odds with economic reality. US shipyards charge roughly five times prevailing global prices for large commercial ships. As a result, few are built. Only three large oceangoing cargo ships have been delivered by US yards so far this decade (all for the protected domestic market where foreign-built vessels are prohibited by the Jones Act). Closing the chasm of competitiveness with leading international shipyards to spark domestic production would require not incremental improvement but a transformation of costs, productivity, and industrial organization on a scale not seen in modern US shipbuilding history. I lay out some of the obstacles that must be overcome in my essay: First, American shipyards struggle to find sufficient labor to meet their current output. Shipbuilding is labor-intensive and requires a stable, highly skilled workforce. Yet Philly Shipyard is reportedly experiencing annual turnover approaching 100 percent, coupled with persistent issues such as drug use. Other yards also report labor difficulties (including quality issues), and worker challenges have been blamed for contributing to the U.S. Navy’s ill-fated Constellation-class frigate program. Such issues are not limited to the graving docks and fabrication shops. Besides a dearth of production workers, there is also a deficit of naval architects.… Second, U.S. shipbuilding facilities are antiquated. A June 2025 GAO [Government Accountability Office] report found that most such infrastructure dates from World War Two, and observers have repeatedly characterized U.S. shipyards as decades behind their international counterparts in terms of technology. Such factors contribute to a yawning productivity gap and are unlikely to be quickly remedied. Notably, a Navy initiative launched in 2018 to modernize its own shipyards is envisioned as a twenty-year project. Third, U.S. shipyards face inflated input costs. American steel prices—kept artificially high through tariffs—are a particular problem for those seeking to construct ships competitively. The absence of a robust network of domestic suppliers and a maritime industrial ecosystem compounds matters. This lis