We're gonna need a bigger boat-building industry

And it's not just the Brooklyn Navy Yard that stopped producing ships. American shipbuilding dried up across the country in the decades following the Cold War. THE Today, the U.S. builds five or fewer large ocean going ships a year. China's list of orders numbered around 3,000 ships in 2024 alone.

And I'm Waylon Wong. Today on the show, the US Barely builds ships anymore. The Trump administration wants to change that. Will it work? That's coming up after the break.

This close relationship between commercial ships and the military traces its roots to a 19th century naval theorist named Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. He wanted American businesses to expand to new international markets. And that meant the country needed a powerful navy to safeguard American ships carrying cargo around the world. Emma Salisbury is a naval expert at a British think tank called the Council on Geostrategy. She says Mahan's ideas underpin how we think of American sea power and its importance to the economy.

Yeah, they were a threat then and we have modern day pirates now.

So enter the Jones Act. It was signed into law in 1920 and it's still in effect. It says that ships traveling between US ports must be American. This means at least 75% of the crew and the ownership. Ownership of the ship has to be American and the ships have to be assembled in the US with major components made in the US So a ship

Now, the maritime industry did get a boost during World War II, but with the Jones act still in effect, commercial shipbuilders lost ground after the war. They didn't have to compete with foreign shipbuilders. As a result, US made ships were more expensive. Companies looking to move stuff around the US opted for land alternatives like road and rail. And there was little foreign demand for US built ships given their higher price tag.

Today, China is the world leader in commercial shipbuilding. American businesses and even the US military rely on Chinese built ships to move stuff around the world.

That's Michael Waltz speaking about China at a September event. He's the Current nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United nations. But at the time he was a Republican congressman from Florida. He was warning that China could cut off the US from its supply of ships. And he has other national security concerns.

Waltz helped draft a bill called the Ships for America Act. It was first introduced last year and it has bipartisan support.

President Trump talked about making US Ships again in a State of the Union address. Emma says this kind of support would be important for the industry. She likes the parts of the Ships act that gives resources to shipbuilders. What she doesn't like are the restrictions on foreign competition. So remember the Jones Act. That's the regulation that made American shipbuilding expensive.

Emma says this policy is supposed to lead to more ships getting built. But what she thinks will actually happen is that less cargo will get transported because there's not enough ships. Then there's a continued uncertainty around tariffs, especially for crucial materials like steel. Emma says these policies could derail a shipbuilding renaissance.

In the meantime, the Trump administration is moving ahead with other policies it hopes will help erode Chinese maritime dominance. In October, the government will start charging fees for any Chinese built or operated commercial ship that docks at an American port. This episode was produced by Ella Feldman with engineering by Kwesi Lee and Patrick Murray. It was fact checked by Tyler Jones and edited by Julia Ritchie. Kicking Cannon is our show's editor, and the indicator is a production of npr. Sam.