The Trump administration has released its plan for expanding the U.S. commercial shipbuilding industry, which will include new subsidies for domestic builders, as well as potential new duties against foreign-made vessels.
The “U.S. Maritime Action Plan” released by the White House on February 13 details a goal to not just increase the number of vessels built in the U.S., but to build an industrial shipbuilding infrastructure that makes America self-sustaining and quick to mobilize in times of crisis. The Plan also aims to make U.S. shipbuilding —
which currently accounts for a tiny fraction of ocean-going cargo vessels —
competitive on an international scale, and to increase the number of U.S.-flagged vessels, as well as massively increasing the number of U.S. seafarers.
“Achieving this goal requires coordinated action across procurement policy, capital investment, supplier resilience, and workforce development, so that shipyards, suppliers, and training institutions can make multi‐year plans,” the plan reads.
The administration says that it will look to focus on special loans and tax breaks for American shipbuilders, as well as workplace development initiatives for U.S. mariners. It also proposes a fee of 1 cent per kilogram on all imported cargo transported by foreign-made ships at U.S. ports, similar to fees that were rolled out against Chinese-built vessels in 2025 (but were then suspended in October 2025 for a year, following a trade deal with China). Additionally, the plan includes a proposal for a so-called “bridge strategy,” where foreign ships would be granted the same privileges as U.S.-built vessels, in exchange for commitments to buy U.S.-built ships later in a multi-vessel contract.
The White House estimates that less than 1% of new commercial ships are built in the U.S. The country also has just 66 total shipyards, a far cry from the roughly 300 in China, which produce half of the world’s commercial vessels each year. That’s led to what the action plan describes as “significant security and supply chain dependency issues,” that have made the U.S. heavily reliant on foreign yards in China and South Korea for the ships that carry the vast majority of American cargo.
