in World News Trump Signs Executive Order Revitalizing America’s Depleted Maritime Fleet
By: Shawn Fleetwood
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that aims to strengthen America’s depleted shipbuilding industry and restore U.S. maritime dominance throughout the world.
“The commercial shipbuilding capacity and maritime workforce of the United States has been weakened by decades of Government neglect, leading to the decline of a once strong industrial base while simultaneously empowering our adversaries and eroding United States national security,” the president wrote. “It is the policy of the United States to revitalize and rebuild domestic maritime industries and workforce to promote national security and economic prosperity.”
Despite being the world’s leading superpower, America’s commercial and military shipbuilding industries have been in free fall for several decades, leading to a diminished naval force and allowing Red China to surpass the U.S. in overall ship production. A leaked 2023 briefing slide from the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, for instance, showed that “Chinese shipyards have a capacity of about 23.2 million tons compared to less than 100,000 tons in the U.S., making Chinese shipbuilding capacity more than 232 times greater than that of the U.S.,” according to Fox News.
Trump’s order seeks to reverse this alarming trend by instructing the assistant to the president for National Security Affairs (APNSA), in coordination with several cabinet secretaries and relevant agencies heads, to create and submit a “Maritime Action Plan (MAP)” within the next 210 days. This plan, according to the directive, will examine policies and actions designed to boost America’s maritime industrial capacity.