(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration announced its plans Friday for expanding the nation’s commercial shipbuilding and maritime capabilities, a three-pronged approach that calls for bolstering U.S. shipbuilding, increasing the mariner workforce, and regulating the industry to encourage use of U.S.-built and U.S.-flagged vessels, USNI News reported.
America’s Maritime Action Plan provides a blueprint for the government, shipbuilders and the maritime industry to meet the requirements of an executive order signed last April by President Trump that called for an overhaul of the U.S. shipping industry, including civilian and military shipbuilding capabilities, mariner training and credentialing and the U.S. port system.
Currently, fewer than 1 percent of new commercial ships are built in the United States. Of the country’s 66 shipyards, eight are fully newbuild yards yards while 11 have some capacity to make new ships. Twenty-two are repair yards with dry-docking capability and 25 can perform repairs but don’t have a dry-dock repair capability.
Considering nearly 42 percent of the country’s trade value is imported and exported on vessels, the maritime sector is a “crucial industry” vital to national security and shouldn’t be dependent on the support of foreign-built and foreign-flagged vessels, White House officials said during a call with reporters on Friday.
“This Maritime Action Plan released today provides the first holistic approach to revitalizing America’s commercial maritime industry while improving the delivery of government procurement,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told reporters. “This plan enumerates actions to address national and economic security concerns related to the maritime sector, including strengthening the security and resilience of maritime supply chains, increasing the fleet of U.S.-built and -flagged commercial vessels, developing a strategy to secure Arctic waterways and recapitalizing government-owned sea list vessels.”
The 44-page document outlines a three-pronged approach to increase U.S. capabilities in building ships, improve merchant mariner training and education, and introduce regulations to ensure that more cargo moves on U.S.-flagged ships through U.S. ports.
Regarding shipbuilding capabilities, the plan calls for investing in upgrades to commercial shipyards, including dry docks, cranes, utilities and other systems, investing in public shipyards such as Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia and the U.S. Coast Guard ship repair in Maryland, forging public-private partnerships to encourage investment by creating tax incentives, and funding existing Maritime Administration programs that invest in shipyards, among other proposals.
The plan also calls for utilizing artificial intelligence and other technologies to analyze the supply chain and “reduce administrative burdens.” It also calls for investing in autonomous vessel capabilities.
The blueprint requires the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess the depths of shipping channels across the U.S to determine whether they meet modern shipping standards.
Under the plan, new fees would be placed on foreign-built vessels entering U.S. ports, and shipbuilders and yards could see improvements in federal financing and incentives. The report noted that laws and regulations that inhibit construction could also be changed. As an example, the report noted, regulations would be changed to require more materials be American-made, and components of some laws such as the Clean Air Act that have been extended to apply to shipbuilding could be reversed.
The report promised that “redundant, obsolete or unduly burdensome regulations” would be eliminated and tasked agencies to revise regulations and streamline their compliance processes.
Under the effort, the administration also will introduce new regulations it says will “level the playing field” for U.S. ports, including a Land Port Maintenance Tax that would apply to land ports similar to the Harbor Maintenance Tax at U.S. seaports. It would also provide incentives to encourage industry to use U.S. vessels to transport cargo and overhaul the acquisition process to encourage domestic shipbuilding.
Recognizing that shipyards face challenges hiring trained workers and to ensure that the U.S. is not reliant on commercial shipping manned by foreign crews, the plan addresses a need to increase the number of shipyard workers and U.S. merchant mariners by improving education and training opportunities.
To accomplish this, the government plans to invest in training mariners and shipbuilders, modernizing the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., investing in state maritime academies and supporting pipelines to educate maritime tradesmen and women.
Among the proposals to increase the size of the mariner population, the report supports a Military to Mariner program that would encourage former servicemembers to become merchant mariners, and bilateral agreements for exchanges with allied countries.
While agencies may be able to embark on many of the regulations without congressional approval, the administration acknowledged it would need legislation for some aspects of the plan and is crafting legislative proposals for Congress to consider.
