Last month, President Donald Trump inked an Executive Order (EO) focused on restoring United States maritime dominance and also revitalizing the American shipbuilding industry.
The primary objective within the EO directs the creation of a Maritime Action Plan (MAP), which will provide a strategy with specific actions in order to restore and create sustained resiliency for the American maritime sector. This plan was part of a mandate issued by a White House EO issued in April 2025, entitled “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance.”
“Up until now, government procurement processes and over-regulation have hindered private industry’s ability to build vessels on time and on budget—this Order reverses that trend,” the EO stated.
Key aspects of the White House’s Maritime Action Plan in a White House fact sheet include:
- instructing the Secretary of Defense to assess options, including the Defense Production Act Title III authorities, to invest in and expand the Maritime Industrial Base, which
- will help better utilize and leverage existing authorities to spur public and private investment in the Maritime Industrial Base;
- directing the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to make recommendations regarding China’s anticompetitive actions within the shipbuilding industry;
- directing the Secretary of Homeland Security to enforce collection of the Harbor Maintenance Fee and other charges on foreign cargo entering the United States to prevent circumvention via Canada or Mexico, putting an end to a longstanding unfair practice, ensuring all cargoes entering the United States are assessed the proper applicable fees and generating additional revenue for investment into the maritime industry;
- the U.S. government will work with its allies and partners to align trade policies to disrupt China’s non-market practices in the international supply chain and logistics sectors;
- establishing a Maritime Security Trust Fund to provide consistent funding for maritime programs in addition to a shipbuilding financial incentives program to boost private investment in U.S. shipbuilding;
- developing Maritime Prosperity Zones to incentivize investment in waterfront communities be modeled on President Trump’s Opportunity Zone concept;
- expanding Mariner training and education through an investment in the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and a plan for expanding training opportunities;
- to ensure national economic security, the U.S. government will increase the fleet of commercial vessels trading internationally under U.S. flag as well as domestically between its ports;
- the MAP will develop a strategy to ensure security and leadership of arctic waterways to address the growing presence of foreign nations in the region and the need for the United States to reestablish itself in the area;
- the Administration will review ways to improve competition within the private sector for government projects and reduce costs to ensure taxpayer funds are being utilized most efficiently; and
- the Order directs the Secretary of Defense to conduct a review and issue guidance on the funding, retention, support, and mobilization of a robust inactive reserve fleet, to ensure the U.S. adequate assured access to sealift capacity whenever needed for military operations
The White House cited President Trump’s recent State of the Union address, in which he pledged to “resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding.”
“We used to make so many ships,” he said. “We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.”
The MAP also calls for a universal infrastructure or security fee on all foreign-build commercial vessels calling on U.S. ports, which would be assessed based on the tonnage of imported cargo arriving on a vessel, with $0.01 per kilogram of imported cargo able to bring in around $66 billion over a 10-year period and $0.25 per kilogram bringing in around $1.5 trillion for the same period—with revenues from this fee to be directed into a new Maritime Security Trust Fund to support shipbuilding capacity, fleet expansion, and maritime workforce development.
It also calls for a land port maintenance tax, focused on ensuring land border ports contribute more equitably to U.S. trade infrastructure costs. The fee would be comprised of a 0.125% of the value of merchandise entering the through land ports of entry, Mexico and Canada, with proceeds allocated towards a Land Port Maintenance Fund, for port planning, construction, maintenance and improvements.
John D. McCown, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy, the Navy League’s think tank, told LM that, in his assessment of the MAP, the U.S. has a “pretty amazing” shipbuilding industry in certain niches, which needs to be further leveraged.
“I think we ought to build on that,” he said. “The higher end you go, the more effective we are…and layer that on top of everything going on, whether it is molten sulfur, atomic plants, automation, or AI—things which the U.S. should be leading. I embrace all of that but where it [MAP] got a little confusing to me are the fees. There are certain aspects of this that are kind of a redo of what the USTR had proposed. But this is broader and does not really just affect China. If you are doing this to build the maritime base, you need to be clear in stating that.”
The MAP’s focus on expanding mariner training, including at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, was welcomed by McCown, whom called it a critical need.
To that end, he explained that a high priority should be placed on operating vessels that have spots for crew personnel and staff coming out of U.S. Merchant Marine academies.
