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Assertion: The United States can rebuild its commercial shipping industry

The American shipbuilding industry declined due to the ending of federal subsidies for commercial shipbuilding under the Reagan administration and the rise of the heavily subsidized East Asian shipbuilding industries.1 The East Asian shipbuilding industries do not have an inherent advantage over the American industry, but they have benefited from decades of government support that make investments in capital-intensive projects such as commercial shipbuilding more appealing.2 The United States could embrace similar measures to rebuild its shipbuilding industry.

A new industrial strategy for shipbuilding, focused on bringing down the costs of production and training new workers, will help the industry catch up with its competitors. World War Two shows how fast the marine industrial base can be built up, at the start of the war America had only 790 ships in its battle force but by the end of the war had more than 6,700. 3

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Footnotes​

  1. Hendrix, J. (2023, March 13). The Age of American Naval Dominance is Over. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/04/us-navy-oceanic-trade-impact-russia-china/673090/ ↩

  2. Kinyua, B. (2024, June 23). South Korea's Rise as a Global Shipbuilder. Maritime Executive. https://maritime-executive.com/article/south-korea-s-rise-as-a-global-shipbuilder ↩

  3. Hendrix, J. (2023, March 13). The Age of American Naval Dominance is Over. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/04/us-navy-oceanic-trade-impact-russia-china/673090/ ↩