Bipartisan ‘National Maritime Strategy’ warns U.S. is far behind China

Republican and Democratic Congressional representatives recently issued the Congressional Guidance for a National Maritime Strategy. The report warns that the United States is way behind China in terms of ships and shipbuilding and needs to catch up.

The report’s authors include Congressman Mike Waltz, Senator Mark Kelly, Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman John Garamendi. They made the following statements:

Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL)
“We must act now, before it is too late, and make a once in a generation investment in the future of America’s maritime power.”

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ)
“Revitalizing the American maritime industry will supercharge our economy and strengthen our national security. It won’t be easy, but America has always been a maritime nation—and the stakes are too high for us to fail.”

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
“The competition between the United States and Communist China will define the 21st century, and nowhere is this conflict more prevalent than in the maritime domain. The U.S. must move quickly to revitalize our maritime industrial base, reinvest in a robust workforce, and advance innovative technologies to project strength and security in the world’s waterways, oceans, and seas.”

Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA)
“Since 2013, I have worked to revitalize the U.S. maritime industry so we can continue to project American sea power abroad during peacetime or war. Congress and the U.S. military must rebuild our domestic commercial shipbuilding and maritime industrial base. American shipyards and mariners are ready, willing, and able to do the job but can no longer be expected to compete against heavily subsidized foreign competitors in mainland China and elsewhere. Our National Maritime Strategy should start with three key words: the Jones Act.”

“Decades of Neglect”

The report said the United States maritime industry has suffered from “decades of neglect” allowing China to take the lead:

“Decades of neglect by the U.S. government and private industry has weakened our shipbuilding capacity and maritime workforce, contributing to a declining U.S.-flag shipping fleet to bring American goods to market and support the U.S. military during wartime. Moreover, the People’s Liberation Army Navy and the merchant marine and maritime militia of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] outnumber the U.S. Navy. For decades, our country has failed to invest in critical maritime infrastructure and capabilities. For this reason, the United States is less capable of competing in a worldwide ocean economy worth between $3 trillion and $6 trillion dollars, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Meanwhile, our strategic competitor, the People’s Republic of China, became the world’s top shipbuilding and shipping nation, boasting 230 times more shipbuilding capacity than the United States, according to the Office of Naval Intelligence. We cannot continue to allow the People’s Republic of China to increasingly grasp control of freedom of navigation on the high seas, international ocean shipping, and the critical maritime infrastructure necessary to maintain global security and the American way of life.”

The report provided the following score card showing China’s lead over the United States:

Collaboration With Allies

U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos del Toro has taken the lead in urging collaboration with Japanese and Korean shipbuilders to make investments in U.S. shipyards.

Meanwhile at the CSBC Shipyard at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, CSBC has built a number of container ships and warships. CSBC could be a partner with the United States in building ships. The company also builds submarines and has developed a design for a floating offshore wind turbine. Two floating wind farms are planned for Central and Northern California. The company could collaborate with American builders to demonstrate best Taiwanese shipbuilding practices.

There is a precedent for such collaboration in semiconductor manufacturing.

In 2022, Congress passed the CHIPS Act to invest $52 billion in upgrading semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, was awarded $6.6 billion to build new semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.

South Korea’s Samsung will receive $6.6 billion to also build new manufacturing in the United States.

There have been calls for Congress to enact a SHIPS Act, similar to the CHIPS Act, to fund investments in new shipyards in the United States that might include collaborations with Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and other shipbuilders.

The report supports collaboration with U.S. allies:

• Prepare for resource competition in the Indo-Pacific and Polar regions with like-minded allies and partner countries. Review vulnerabilities to international maritime regulation, enforcement systems, and critical maritime infrastructure for global commerce.
• Support a strong U.S. commercial maritime industry-both domestic and internationally-to leverage global supply chains the United States can access in peacetime, crisis, and war.
• Establish allied and partner arrangements for combined presence operations to share the burden of providing freedom of navigation on the high seas, conducting maritime security operations, protecting ocean resources in critical regions, and potentially establishing green corridors and maritime opportunity zones.
• Seek mutually beneficial relationships with treaty allies, exploring comparative advantages to lower cost, time, and the complexity of rebuilding America’s domestic shipping and shipbuilding industry.
• Share the burden for critical maritime parts and projects, applying best practices from other industry supply chain models to the maritime sector.

Recommendations from the Report

The National Maritime Strategy report also made the following recommendations:

• Strengthen America’s maritime workforce and the Jones Act Fleet—the backbone of our sea services, industry, and maritime transportation system.
• Invest and innovate in domestic shipbuilding and U.S.-flag shipping capabilities and capacity to advance the power and influence of America's maritime industry.
• Revitalize the U.S.-flagged international fleet through targeted incentive programs and regulatory reforms to make the fleet competitive with international carriers.
• Drive modern business and manufacturing approaches: innovative maritime logistics, fuels, and advanced nuclear energy, human-machine teaming, additive manufacturing, and other advanced technologies.
• Survey and evaluate conditions of critical maritime infrastructure to invest in America’s marine highways, guiding public and private investments to the most high-impact projects.
• Leverage existing, unused authorities to speed the flow of taxpayer resources towards U.S.-flag shipping and domestic commercial shipbuilding.
• Ensure U.S. and allied naval forces can effectively defend global freedom of navigation on the high seas.
• Confront rapidly emerging challenges by immediately accelerating polar, seabed warfare, and undersea warfare capabilities.
• Encourage public outreach to demonstrate how American shipbuilding and U.S.-flag shipping are critical to national security, and that maritime workers are essential.
• Harden critical maritime infrastructure and networks, enforce the new federal ban on the use of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Transportation’s National Transportation and Logistics Public Information Platform, commonly referred to as “LOGINK,” and incrementally replace Chinese-built cranes in American ports with domestically manufactured ones.
• Attract private investment into U.S.-flag shipping and domestic shipbuilding.
• Speed development of a long-term National Maritime Strategy for incremental implementation, including state and local policy options. Establish a Presidentially appointed position to synchronize all national maritime affairs and policy.
• Establish a National Maritime Council, led by the President’s maritime appointee, to monitor and report on the implementation of the national maritime strategy.
• Grow domestic shipbuilding capacity and demand modern performance expectations. Provide the authorities and funding to support domestic shipbuilding. Explore treaty ally collaboration to expand domestic shipbuilding opportunities and insource capabilities to the U.S. market.
• Take all measures possible to expand, develop, and protect the domestic maritime workforce, fully funding and reinvigorating the Maritime Administration, U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Maritime Commission, and other federal agencies. that protect, regulate, and support the U.S. maritime industry.
• Grow U.S.-flagged shipping capacity and guarantee U.S. Government cargo during peacetime. Establish new programs leveraging a range of tools such as tax incentives.
• Urge investment in America’s Maritime Transportation System and inland waterways. Address the national maintenance backlog, which according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, amounts to $125 billion for bridges, $163 billion for ports, and $6.8 billion for inland waterways.