Restoring America’s Commercial Maritime Industrial Base

China has become a commercial shipping and shipbuilding powerhouse of extraordinary scope and scale. This gives China unmatched control over the circulatory system that feeds the global economy: the ships, ports, and other essential links in international trade. China has also leveraged its commercial maritime resources to build up its navy, coast guard, and maritime militia at an astonishing pace, exerting increasing economic and military control over the Western Pacific and around the world.

The United States, in contrast, has resigned itself to being a customer of global logistics supply chains. America’s total commercial fleet is too small to meet basic US military resupply requirements should a conflict with China break out. One issue is that not nearly enough of America’s shipbuilding industrial base is supported by commercial building and repair work financed by private sector customers. To deter Chinese aggression and secure maritime supply lines both in peacetime and in a potential conflict, the US should enhance collaboration with allies and update its own policies governing commercial shipbuilding and the international shipping industry.

Join Hudson Senior Fellow Michael Roberts and Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee and a recognized expert on Navy shipbuilding and maritime policy, for a discussion on America’s critical shipping and shipbuilding industries.