The U.S. is 97 percent reliant on foreign ships to transport its imports and exports.
America’s standing as a commercial sea power has been in decline since the mid-twentieth century while China, Brazil and now India have declared that their commercial shipyards are “Strategic National assets”.
“US-built coastal ships are the trucks of the US Marine Highway”
The United States needs a fleet of modern coastal container and trailer ships and modern commercial shipyards that are up to the task. This new fleet is essential to the nation’s economic security and viability. It will be one element of a strategy to address the nation’s freight capacity requirements at a time of crisis in landside infrastructure funding. New ships will replace an aging, inefficient Jones Act container fleet at a time when strict, new environmental standards are enforced for the North American Emissions Control Area. Construction of these vessels and their deployment along America’s coastal corridors will create tens of thousands of new direct, indirect and induced jobs on the water, in the ports, and in our yards. We expect that a new fleet of American container feeder ships, servicing a vibrant US coastal marine highway, will join rail in offering competitive intermodal transportation services for domestic and import/export goods.
Download our whitepaper to learn how US shipyards can become competitive again.
