SEOUL—To see the future of American shipbuilding, Sen. Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania Republican who is spearheading a push to bring naval manufacturing back to the U.S., had to venture half a world away.
Army captain and hedge-fund executive, McCormick said the U.S. has lost its shipbuilding capacity in a generation—and needs a jolt to get naval manufacturing back on track. But the U.S. needs help from allies to pull off the turnaround. And America’s most ambitious project to date involves Hanwha, which purchased a shipyard in Philadelphia about two years ago. During his recent shipyard visit, McCormick was shown a photo of modern welding machines delivered to Philadelphia, replacing decades-old equipment. A former U.S.
President Trump has called for a new “Maritime Golden Age” by expanding American shipbuilding capacity . “The world is not going to wait for us to get there,” said McCormick, who was elected in 2024. “We need to move faster.”
The South Korean government, as part of its trade deal last year with Trump, has pledged $150 billion to improve U.S. shipbuilding.
2 at roughly 16%. No other country has more than 3%. Due to higher production costs and a lack of suppliers, the U.S. will struggle to become a viable source of commercial ships, said Woo Jong-hun, a ship-production engineering professor at Seoul National University who works with Korea’s big shipbuilders.
The White House has proposed major overhauls to how the Navy designs, manufactures and maintains its fleet. Under current U.S. law, naval vessels, with few exceptions, must be manufactured in the U.S. Hanwha is the only foreign firm to have acquired a U.S. shipyard in recent years. A big sticking point for other South Korean firms, as well as the Japanese and Washington’s other shipbuilding allies, is whether they can count on future demand from the Pentagon. Congress has yet to pass the annual defense bill that would greenlight funding.
China is expected to reel in more than three-quarters of new commercial ship orders this year, based on tonnage, according to Clarksons Research, with South Korea No. The Trump administration has recommended allowing foreign shipyards that make “substantial and durable” investments into the U.S. be allowed to make up to two naval ships in their home countries. America’s commercial building sector is “not globally competitive” and the industrial base “atrophied,” said a White House statement in August. And for military vessels, he said, restrictions limit the market and make the business case to a private company unclear.
