Energy Musings - February 16, 2026

Happy Washington's Birthday. Last week, the Trump administration issued its Maritime Action Plan to revitalize this critical economic sector. It is time to get serious. Will it happen?

Can The U.S. Revitalize Its Maritime Industry?

Late last week, America’s Maritime Action Plan (MAP), a requirement of President Donald Trump’s April 9, 2025, Executive Order 14269, “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance,” was issued. The 42-page document “calls for policies that modernize government procurement processes and streamline regulations to accelerate shipbuilding and reduce costs.”

While the report is not hundreds of pages long, which would have landed with a thud on the desks of Washington decision-makers, it may still propose more change than they can accept or tolerate. Revitalizing the maritime industry will require accepting that the effort must be part of a broader U.S. industrial policy. A policy that will last long beyond the Trump administration. It will also require money, something that the U.S. will struggle to find.

A successful MAP requires acknowledging that the road to our current uncompetitive shipbuilding and shipping industries has been paved by decades of neglect and poor government policies. Correcting them will necessitate vision, commitment, and a willingness to examine and likely revise some sacred legislation, namely the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (known as the Jones Act). Are our current political leaders in Congress capable of such an effort, or is MAP dead on arrival?

Fewer than 1% of new commercial ships are built in the U.S., while 90+% are built in Asia (China, Korea, and Japan). In 2022, the U.S. had 5 ships under construction, while China had 1,794, Korea had 734, Japan had 587, and Europe had 319. In 2023, U.S. shipyards delivered 0.2% of the world’s total of new ship tonnage. American-built ships are considerably more expensive than competitors. An example is the three new 3,600-TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containerships, priced at approximately $1 billion in total (or $330 million each). These ships could have been built in Chinese yards for an estimated $60-$75 million.

The U.S. has only 66 shipyards, consisting of 8 active shipbuilding yards, 11 shipyards with building capabilities, 22 repair yards with drydocking, and 25 topside repair yards. The lack of shipbuilding capacity has often caused the U.S. Navy to send ships for repair and maintenance to Korean shipyards.

The MAP is based on four pillars.

“• Rebuilding U.S. Shipbuilding Capacity and Capabilities

• Reforming Workforce Education and Training

• Protecting the Maritime Industrial Base

• Supporting National Security and Industrial Resilience.”

Pages of recommended policy actions support each pillar. Some of these actions involve revising existing policies. In others, it may mean new policy actions. While not stated, some of the changes may affect the Jones Act, which could create a serious problem given vested interests. Moreover, many shipping industry officials understand that the Jones Act must be modified. Still, given how Congress handles legislation today, they worry that opening up the Jones Act to modify specific sections will lead to massive changes and the addition of pet projects by Congressmen, making the effort worse. Therefore, they are officially against any action to modify the Jones Act.

The four pillars offer a roadmap to the magnitude of the changes needed to revitalize our maritime industry. The proposals are easy to state and justify, but implementing them will be a monumental task that requires multiple leaders across government agencies and Congress. It will also require close coordination with our allies and foreign shipbuilders.

Pillar I of the MAP presents the steps needed to rebuild the Nation’s shipbuilding capacity.

• Increasing domestic shipbuilding capacity;

• Incentivizing investment in U.S. shipyards;

• Establishing Maritime Prosperity Zones to incentivize and align new domestic and allied investment in U.S. maritime industries and waterfront communities;

• Addressing myriad supply and demand issues; and

• Reducing dependence on unreliable suppliers through heightened cooperation with allies and partners.”

Pillar II involves actions to reform the maritime workforce and education to grow the mariner population to man the anticipated larger U.S.-flag fleet.

• Expanding mariner training and education to address workforce challenges in the maritime sector through maritime educational institutions and workforce transitions;

• Providing financial and regulatory incentives for the training of shipbuilders and U.S. credentialed mariners;

• Modernizing the USMMA through Federal investment to address urgent deferred maintenance projects and other mission-critical repairs and develop a five-year capital improvement plan based on the long-term Master Facilities Plan for the modernization of the campus; and

• Otherwise, enhancing maritime training capabilities to meet industry needs.”

Pillar III provides a list of urgent actions required to protect the Maritime Industrial Base (MIB) and strengthen demand signals, including:

“• Strengthen requirements for shipping government-impelled and commercial cargoes on U.S.-flagged vessels;

• Impose a Land Port Maintenance Tax to balance payments from importations across land ports versus maritime ports;

• Streamline and improve acquisition processes for USG vessels while reducing change orders; and

• Consider actions, as appropriate, based on USTR’s investigation of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) targeting of the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors for dominance.”

Pillar IV outlines recommendations for changes needed to strengthen national and economic security and the resilience of the maritime industry.

“• Strengthening the security and resilience of the MIB through strengthening component supply chains;

• Increasing the fleet of commercial vessels trading internationally under the U.S. flag;

• Establishing a Maritime Security Trust Fund;

• Fostering the development of the autonomous maritime technology industry;

• Developing a strategy to secure Arctic waterways and enable American prosperity in the face of evolving Arctic security challenges and associated risks; and

• Prioritizing the recapitalization of government-owned sealift vessels.”

The MAP lays out the current legislative landscape for revitalizing the maritime industry. Legislative proposals that encompass many of the proposed actions in the MAP have been introduced in both chambers of Congress. These bills, titled the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security Act of 2025 (SHIPS Act) and the Building Ships in America Act of 2025, propose many actions to rebuild the U.S. maritime sector. Unfortunately, the bills have made little progress in the approval process, and the issues they raise and attempt to address will require significant investigation, debate, and horse-trading, which is the nature of the modern legislative process.

The Trump administration is compiling its own package of legislative proposals designed to strengthen the maritime industry. These legislative proposals will provide foundational support to this critical industry. They will have to be enshrined in legislation to ensure the maritime industry’s continued growth. The following is the list of proposals included in the MAP.

“• Enforce the payment of fees at our borders and prevent the circumvention of certain charges by importing through land borders as opposed to maritime ports;

• Create a Maritime Security Trust Fund that will serve as a reliable funding source for consistent support of programs detailed in this MAP;

• Provide for the creation and improvement of programs that will incentivize private investment in commercial shipbuilding, commercial shipyards, and repair facilities;

• Organize Maritime Prosperity Zones, modeled off of Opportunity Zones, to incentivize and facilitate domestic and allied investment in U.S. maritime industries and waterfront communities;

• Establish national maritime scholarships and other opportunities to better facilitate the training of students abroad, as well as bring maritime experts from allied countries into the United States to teach Americans domestically; and

• Ensure adequate cubed footage and gross tonnage of U.S.-flagged commercial vessels to be called on in times of crisis through incentives that will grow the fleet of U.S.-built, crewed, and flagged vessels that participate in international trade.”

MAP acknowledges that the proposed actions will be consistent with the Trump administration’s policy and fall within the scope of its budget proposal. Therefore, the package of legislative proposals will not be forwarded to Congress until the publication of the FY2027 President’s Budget Request.

There is always optimism when an administration proposes major new policy initiatives. This time is no different. However, the challenge is that the public lacks understanding of the U.S. vulnerability stemming from its weak maritime sector. We have proven we cannot build Navy ships on time and on budget, leaving the U.S. Navy with a significantly smaller fleet than that of our main adversary, China. We are almost incapable of waging naval campaigns in multiple oceans. The latest proof was the time required to mobilize fleets for military operations in both the Caribbean and the Middle East.

Further evidence was the need to update our aging icebreaker fleet, given the Arctic’s growing importance for military, resource, and commercial transit. While Russia is the major player in the Arctic, given its vast territory, the region has become a prime target for China’s economic and military strategies. Because our shipbuilding capacity is so limited, the Trump administration was forced to create a blended program involving Finnish shipyards to build new icebreakers. It is anticipated that the Finnish yards will help train a domestic shipyard to build these vessels.

While the U.S. has become largely energy self-sufficient in producing coal, oil, and natural gas, we are still dependent on international supplies of certain grades of oil for our refineries. The U.S. has no natural gas and chemical carriers, and only a handful of oil tankers. Our energy security could be compromised should an international boycott of the U.S. be implemented. Yes, we could hope our allies would help us, but that would be seen as a significant economic vulnerability, weakening our role in the global economy.

The Trump administration is working hard to rebuild the manufacturing capabilities that powered the U.S. into the global economic and military leader we have become. The problem is that these roles are based on a weak industrial foundation. That foundation must be rebuilt and quickly. MAP is the start. We will be watching closely to see what momentum it generates and whether that turns into concrete actions.