Trump’s Maritime Action Plan: Build American Ships Again

I’m at the bar stool, smelling like hickory smoke and bad decisions, watching Washington finally remember we’re a maritime nation. President Trump’s administration rolled out a Maritime Action Plan, and it reads like somebody grabbed the wheel instead of letting America’s ocean trade hitchhike under somebody else’s flag.

The problem: America’s trade rides foreign hulls

Fox News reported on February 16, 2026 that the administration unveiled a sweeping plan to reclaim U.S. maritime strength and reduce dependence on foreign-built, foreign-owned, and foreign-flagged vessels. Senior officials put a brutal number on it: nearly 99% of U.S. international maritime trade is moving on foreign-built, foreign-owned, and foreign-flagged ships.

That is not “global cooperation.” That is like owning an F-150 and paying strangers to drive it because you forgot where you left the keys.

China’s shipbuilding edge is the scoreboard

Fox reported China produces more than half of the world’s commercial ship tonnage. The Maritime Action Plan itself says the United States builds less than 1% of new commercial ships globally. That’s the reality check, delivered cold, like AM radio at dawn.

The plan’s core: yards, workers, and stable demand

Published in February 2026, the plan describes a U.S. shipyard base of 66 total shipyards:

• 8 active shipbuilding yards
• 11 shipyards with build positions
• 22 repair yards with drydocking
• 25 topside repair yards

It also admits the industrial gut punch: workforce shortages, supplier consolidation, and federal “stop-start” ordering cycles that make long-term planning harder than trying to smoke ribs while somebody keeps yanking the fuel.

The plan leans into investment incentives, shipyard modernization, and regulatory relief. It also pushes Maritime Prosperity Zones, modeled after 2017 Opportunity Zones, to steer capital toward waterfront communities that can build, repair, and crew ships. On people, it floats a Mariner Incentive Program at MARAD to support education, recruitment, training, and retention, plus steps to strengthen pipelines through state maritime academies and other training routes.

Taxes, trust funds, and the enforcement timeline

The plan proposes a Land Port Maintenance Tax to address cargo routing around costs: 0.125% of merchandise value entering through land ports, funding a Land Port Maintenance Trust Fund.

It also discusses a Maritime Security Trust Fund, including a revenue illustration that a $0.25 per kilogram fee could yield close to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

On China trade enforcement, the plan summarizes the USTR Section 301 investigation: initiated in 2024, public report released January 16, 2025, responsive action taken April 17, 2025. It also notes a U.S.-China economic and trade deal on October 30, 2025, with U.S. implementation of responsive actions suspended for one year starting November 10, 2025.

Defense reality: fewer builders, bigger bottlenecks

Fox tied this to rising Navy shipbuilding costs and a shrinking industrial base. Defense shipbuilding is concentrated: just two shipbuilders build the Navy’s nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines, Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat. Fox also reported Secretary of the Navy John Phelan warned shipyards need to act like we’re at war, and cited the Office of Naval Intelligence assessment that China’s shipbuilding capacity is more than 200 times that of the United States, amid submarine production delays and supply-chain bottlenecks.

Final sermon: build the ships, crew the ships

This plan is not a magic wand. It’s a blueprint with real numbers, real vulnerabilities, and proposals that still need money, laws, and follow-through. But at least it says the quiet part out loud: maritime power is steel, workers, shipyards, and time. Live free, grill hard, and build the ships.