Fed up with lagging American shipbuilding capabilities, President-elect Donald Trump offered an unconventional solution to the problem. The idea is that if the US cannot keep up with shipbuilding capacity, production will be outsourced.
“We’re going to do things with ships. We need ships. And we may have to go a different route than you normally go,” the president-elect told radio host Hugh. -Suggested to Hewitt.
“We don’t build ships anymore. We used to build ships every day. We don’t build ships anymore. We want to start doing that. And maybe we can start building ships. We may have to take advantage of our allies as well. ”
He noted that China significantly exceeds the shipbuilding capabilities of the United States.
“From what I’ve heard, the Chinese buildings are knocking out ships every four days. We sit and watch, and we’re in great pain.”
President Trump has threatened to build American ships overseas. (Reuters)
It is certain that the domestic shipbuilding industry and labor groups will be wary of President Trump’s stance. But China’s shipbuilding capacity is more than 232 times that of the United States, and this comes as the Navy has struggled for decades to build ships on time.
And it’s a departure from his campaign promises to bring manufacturing back to the United States, impose a 60% tariff on all imports from China, and impose a flat tariff on all global imports into the United States.
China’s navy is the largest in the world, with more than 370 ships and submarines. U.S. combat power includes 295 ships, including 11 active-duty aircraft carriers. In 2017, Congress passed a law requiring the Navy to maintain and maintain a fleet of 355 ships.
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Although he did not provide details, President Trump hinted at plans to expand the Navy’s fleet of ships.
“We’re going to announce some very good things related to the Navy. We need ships. We’ve got to get ships. And you know, everybody’s going to say, ‘Oh, we ‘We may have to go elsewhere and auction them off, that’s fine, but we’re going to auction them off until they’re ready,’ he said. .
The photo above is the USS Ronald Reagan.
The United States also lags behind in nuclear submarines, military experts say. Jerry Hendricks, a retired Navy captain and senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute, said in an op-ed in American Affairs that the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet has reached a Cold War-era high of 140.
“The bottom line is that the U.S. submarine force, the ‘tip of the spear’ of U.S. power on which so many military programs depend, is unprepared to deal with the current threat environment and is not ready for quick-fix solutions.” “There is no plan. It took decades, and a series of wrong assumptions and poor decisions led us to our current state of unpreparedness.”
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According to the latest numbers, there are 68 submarines in the U.S. fleet, and only 50 of them fall into the hunter-killer “fast attack” category.
Currently, China controls 46.59% of the global shipbuilding market. South Korea came in second place with 29.24%, and Japan came in third with 17.25%. US market power is relatively insignificant at 0.13%. And it costs roughly twice as much to build a ship in the United States as it does in other parts of the world.
Congress’ $895 billion annual defense policy bill authorized $33.5 billion for new ships and submarines.
A Navy report last year said several major shipbuilding programs are years behind schedule, largely due to labor shortages.
President Trump also criticized the management of the Navy’s Constellation-class frigate program, accusing Biden-era officers of “playing around and tinkering” and increasing costs.
In his conversation with Hewitt, Trump appeared to refer to a 2020 contract the Pentagon signed with the U.S. subsidiary of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri for a new class of ships.
Aerial photo of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower
“And they were doing a really good job, and the generals, you know, Biden’s admirals and generals and everyone involved, started playing around and tinkering and changing designs. And this, you know, it costs a lot of money,” Trump said.
“But the generals and admirals came in and said, ‘Oh, why don’t we make it a little bit wider? What if we did this? What if we did that?’ And then the speed. It’s designed around things like that, so when you start making it wider, it starts to slow down,” Trump continued.
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“We solved the problem and they made the change. They always have to make changes. You know, these people get in there and think they’re smart. But a lot of times, unfortunately, they’re not smart, and when they ingest something, they make it even worse.”
When President Ronald Reagan took office, he set a goal of increasing the number of ships to 600 ships and focused on rebuilding the Navy after the Vietnam War. But his administration also ended subsidies for shipbuilding that had decimated the commercial market, which meant that U.S. shipyards were focused solely on meeting the military’s needs.
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