The United Nations Trade and Development Agency recently released data showing the world delivered 71.7 million tons of new ships last year. Additionally, between early 2024 and 2025, the global merchant fleet grew by 1,469 vessels. On the other hand, U.S. shipyards delivered merely 30,782 tons, or four hundredths of a percent of the world’s total. That was not 4%. It wasn’t four-tenths of a percent. It was four hundredths of a percent — not even a rounding error! It was therefore unsurprising that the domestic merchant fleet only increased by six ships.
It is no secret that the American shipbuilding industry is in sad shape. It was a victim of the downsizing of the U.S. defense establishment following the 1991 end of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union dissolved. Government officials began cutting defense expenditures because maintaining a large military was considered unnecessary.
Defense officials lectured the leaders of suppliers of military wares that the future of spending would be down. Therefore, it was prudent for them to reduce their footprints. Facing the prospect of a more competitive market, the companies entered an aggressive phase of mergers and acquisitions. Besides reducing the number of military suppliers, companies cut operating costs, laid off workers, and reduced capital investment. The latter move resulted in companies failing to modernize their facilities, including shipyards.
Today, the U.S. military and commercial maritime industries suffer from the resulting contraction of the shipbuilding industry. The sorry state of our maritime industry has left the U.S. Navy with shipyards requiring years to build modern warships and a severe lack of repair and maintenance capacity. These limitations have led to a shrinking Navy, which trails the fleet size of our leading adversary, China. Our Navy, however, continues to possess greater firepower and technological sophistication than the Chinese Navy.
On the commercial front, over 90% of the world’s merchant fleet has Asian and European owners. Between 2024 and 2025, the U.S. merchant fleet, excluding non-blue-water vessels, failed to grow. With 239 vessels, the U.S. merchant fleet is barely a drop in the world fleet bucket.
The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of Congress members understand the national security risks for the United States. Our Navy faces a risk of not being capable of upgrading and maintaining our fleet. Furthermore, the U.S. is at risk of its waterborne trade being disrupted by foreign actors interested in harming the U.S. in the event of a military confrontation. The UN data is a wake-up call for reviving the U.S. maritime and shipbuilding industries. Will we respond?
