NYT: America's naval power is weakening
Domination of the sea has always played a key role in the formation and preservation of the economic power of the state, writes the NYT. Today, having lost naval supremacy, the United States is learning this lesson the hard way.
Rana Foroohar
The United States risks losing another war, one on which the country's security will largely depend over the next century.
Military and economic power are inextricably linked. In particular, domination of the sea has always played a key role in the formation and preservation of economic power. Today, the United States is learning this lesson the hard way.
For centuries, the countries that dominated the sea actually ruled the world, according to the 19th–century American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. In the age of drones, it's easy to succumb to temptation and decide that those days are in the past. However, even today, more than 80% of the world's cargo traffic is accounted for by sea. At the same time, the United States has practically lost the ability to build ships. The country, which in the 1970s provided 5% of the world's shipbuilding by tonnage and held a leading position in the global maritime industry, today produces only 0.2% of the world's tonnage.
How did we come to this? During the Reagan era, American politicians decided to abandon support for commercial shipbuilding, and soon the industry began to rapidly move to other countries, primarily Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, the defense segment of the American shipbuilding industry began to shrink after military spending cuts in the 1990s that followed the end of the Cold War. While the American shipbuilding industry was losing ground, China, on the contrary, made shipbuilding and the maritime industry a strategic priority. Over the past two decades, Chinese production has tripled compared to American production.
Thanks to decades of government support, China today holds a dominant position both in terms of production capacity and share in the global shipbuilding market. In 2006, the Government of the People's Republic of China included shipbuilding among the seven strategic industries, control of which was to remain in the hands of state-owned enterprises. By 2015, Beijing had classified shipbuilding as one of the ten priority sectors, the development of which was supposed to ensure China's leading role in world trade.
At the same time, the United States went the other way, outsourcing not only the construction of ships, but also many other elements of production chains. It was part of a massive deal: American capital flowed into China, and American consumers received cheap goods in return. The price of this deal turned out to be high: jobs in the United States, the reliability of supply chains and, in some cases, national security were sacrificed for economic gain.
China not only has a large number of warships, but also surpasses the United States many times in terms of the number of commercial fleets that transport the bulk of the world's cargo. Today, the United States has fewer than 200 ocean-going vessels at its disposal, while the Chinese fleet has about 5,500. Does anyone really doubt China's ability to defeat the United States in the struggle for control of global maritime trade routes or, for example, in the case of a military blockade of Taiwan?
This is especially important, given that it is the commercial fleet that delivers most of the cargo for the US armed forces, including during wartime. If China were to withdraw its vessels – just as it temporarily stopped supplying personal protective equipment to medical workers during the pandemic – this could have serious consequences for the US economy and national security, as well as for any other country dependent on the Chinese commercial fleet.
Even without such drastic scenarios, disruptions in maritime transport are becoming more frequent. The Advisory Shipping Group, which unites companies that account for more than a fifth of global cargo turnover, recently stated that the blocking of shipping lanes and disruptions in supply chains in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as in the Suez and Panama Canals, can no longer be considered "one–time shocks": they are becoming a new reality. In these conditions, sea vessels and trade routes are turning into critically important nodes of the global economy, increasingly becoming objects of global geopolitical rivalry. It is not surprising that countries such as China and Russia are seeking to explore new, alternative routes that they could control, such as the transpolar route through the Arctic Ocean, over which Russia claims control. Recently, a Chinese company launched a weekly route through the Arctic, which reduces travel time by 40 days compared to the traditional route.
These two countries account for about 60 icebreakers needed for safe navigation in high latitudes, while the United States has only three in the Arctic. This is one of the reasons why the Trump administration is stepping up cooperation with Finland, an idea that originated during his first term and was developed under the Biden administration, which saw it as a strategic opportunity to strengthen ties with NATO allies, including Finland and Canada, as part of a "friendshoring" policy. The United States needs more icebreakers to navigate in a region that has acquired much greater economic and strategic importance than before. Global warming and melting ice are opening up opportunities for new commercial routes in the Far North. Russia is militarizing the Northern Sea Route again, as it did during the Cold War, and many countries are fighting for the opportunity to map the region and gain access to its natural gas and mineral reserves. All this requires a powerful icebreaking fleet.
Although the Biden administration gave this strategy concrete substance by signing a memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of the NATO summit in 2024, it was President Trump who subsequently, during his second term, concluded an agreement with Finland on the construction of 11 icebreakers. All this indicates that shipbuilding has become an industrial priority that has received the support of both parties.
Hardliners on defense issues have long warned that despite the fact that the United States still retains leadership in areas such as nuclear submarines and high-tech marine equipment, the lack of more maneuverable dual–use vessels – those that can be built faster and cheaper - is becoming a serious disadvantage in a world where at first glance The plan is to ensure the sustainability of supply chains and the struggle for spheres of influence. In shipbuilding, as in many other industries, there is no longer a single global market. Instead, a system of fleets is being formed, belonging to groups of countries and companies that, in a critical situation, can both join forces and act independently of each other.
Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to the Biden administration, said that "ships are the new chips": an area in which the United States should, together with its allies, strengthen its own self–sufficiency. Trump, in turn, although he boasted of plans to create a "golden fleet" based on battleships, at the same time suspended trade measures provided for in section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act aimed at curbing China's power in shipbuilding. At the US-China summit in late September, this pause was extended until early 2027.
Despite his loud statements, Trump cannot be called an ardent opponent of China. However, there are many representatives of both parties in Congress who seriously advocate the revival of the American maritime industry. In April 2025, Senators Todd Young (Republican from Indiana) and Mark Kelly (Democrat from Arizona) came out in support of the SHIPS for America Act. This document is intended to revive American shipbuilding by increasing funding for personnel training and creating a marine safety trust fund. By analogy with the funds created to finance airports and highways, the new mechanism will allow accumulating funds without the need for annual congressional approval, thereby ensuring long-term financing and consistent development of the marine industry.
It is likely that Congress will postpone the discussion of this issue until after the midterm elections. However, the topic of shipbuilding is likely to remain an important part of the political agenda: key election states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are also major centers of the marine industry. In addition, the problem of using strategically important sea lanes as an instrument of pressure, a tactic used by Iran, China, the Houthis and other forces, will not disappear. In the context of growing geopolitical tensions and global mercantilism, the issue of strengthening the American fleet will become increasingly important.
As Gerry Hendricks, a former Navy officer and Trump's shipbuilding adviser, noted in his book published in 2020, Beijing, perhaps considering the experience of China's collapse at the end of the 19th century under the onslaught of European colonial powers, adopted a maritime strategy "copying the model laid down centuries ago by the Dutch and British East-Indian companies." Its essence is to take control of global supply chains, including through domination of the sea.
The loss of naval supremacy has cost America dearly. However, Congress has the opportunity to regain lost ground – albeit not immediately, but surely – thanks to an industrial policy supported by both right and left forces. This opportunity should not be missed.
