On March 19, 1898, USS Oregon left San Francisco to join the American fleet in the Atlantic as the country approached war with Spain. The battleship stopped for coal along the South American coast and passed through the Strait of Magellan, reaching Florida 66 days and more than 14,000 miles later. The Navy needed the battleship on the other side of its own country, more than two months away by sea.
The United States began building the Panama Canal in 1904 and opened it in 1914. When Panama opened its larger locks in 2016, the first vessel through was COSCO Shipping Panama, chartered by a Chinese shipping company and built by Hyundai Samho in South Korea. American yards ought to be competing for more of that commercial work, using allied expertise to expand production here while we rebuild the fleet that carries American goods.
The long way around
The Panama Canal Authority restored the maximum draft for its larger locks to 49 feet on September 28 after rainfall improved. Daily reservation slots will increase to 33 on October 15. Ships still depend on freshwater to rise through the locks, drawing from reservoirs that also supply nearby communities. Panama plans to build the Río Indio reservoir between 2027 and 2031, leaving exporters to navigate several more dry seasons before the additional water arrives.
American Pacific ports and transcontinental railroads already carry freight around the canal, and Pacific Northwest grain terminals give farmers direct access to Asian markets. Expanding those facilities would let more cargo use them when Panama restricts passage. America also needs pipelines between producing regions and markets that depend on fuel delivered by sea. Magellan and the route around Cape Horn through the northern Drake Passage remain costly alternatives, with longer voyages and severe weather.
Before the war with Iran began in February, Hormuz carried roughly one-fifth of global petroleum consumption and more than one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas trade. Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline carries crude across the country to the Red Sea, while the UAE’s pipeline to Fujairah reaches an export terminal outside Hormuz. Those land routes have helped keep oil moving, although attacks have threatened the Saudi line as well. Both have finite capacity, some already in use, and neither can carry Qatar’s LNG.
On October 12, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister discussed increasing the kingdom’s pipeline export capacity to around 10 million barrels a day over two to three years. The proposal includes improving the East-West system and potentially converting a domestic gas pipeline temporarily to carry oil.
Tanker operators have also used shuttle vessels to carry oil through Hormuz, transferring cargo to other ships outside the strait. Renewed attacks and congestion have made that arrangement more difficult, with some vessels proceeding directly to India. The crews doing those voyages remain exposed each time they return for another cargo.
Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd announced in September that four more joint services would return to Suez, joining two already using the route, subject to regional stability. Houthi attacks around Bab el-Mandeb continue to threaten the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Diversions around the Cape of Good Hope keep ships at sea longer, burning additional fuel and delaying their availability for the next cargo. American and allied navies help protect the shorter route, while shipowners decide whether to use it.
Singapore handled 44.66 million twenty-foot equivalent units of container traffic in 2025, connecting cargo across an enormous transshipment network. The adjoining Singapore and Malacca straits carry energy and goods to China, Japan and South Korea. Sunda and Lombok offer longer alternatives through Indonesia, subject to different vessel-draft limits. Beijing depends on continued access to these waters even as it develops the forces to pressure its neighbors.
A northern opening
Dubai Tower left Qingdao, its final Chinese port, on August 19 and reached Teesport in England on September 9 after crossing the Russian Arctic. Sea Legend advertised a season of eight scheduled departures from China to Europe. Ice conditions forced adjustments during the crossing. On October 5, tracking placed Dubai Tower in Suez during its return to Asia, on the southern route Sea Legend had already described.
Russia supplies icebreaker support and administers permits along its northern coast, giving Moscow substantial influence over the cost and conditions of passage. Chinese operators are accumulating experience in that system as the seasonal opportunity develops. Alaska faces Russia across the Bering Strait, at the Pacific entrance to the route, while Greenland lies near its Atlantic approaches. We already have an Arctic coast to develop, and cooperation with Denmark and Greenland should strengthen American access and security at the other end.
The Coast Guard has awarded contracts for up to 11 Arctic Security Cutters. Finnish yards will build part of the initial fleet, with first deliveries expected in 2028 and the first American-built cutter expected in 2029.
Nome’s planned port expansion would give larger vessels a place to operate along Alaska’s western coast. Construction there should proceed alongside the cutters, so the ships arrive with shore facilities able to support their crews and sustain operations.
Who builds the fleet
Chinese yards produced 56.1% of the world’s new ship capacity by deadweight tonnage in 2025 and took 69% of new orders on the same basis, according to China’s industry ministry. State-owned groups build merchant vessels and warships, sustaining industrial skills and suppliers across both businesses. Foreign commercial orders help support that system, while COSCO’s shipping services and overseas terminals extend China’s participation from construction into the movement and handling of cargo. American and allied navies continue protecting trade carried aboard ships that a strategic competitor increasingly manufactures. Beijing has rehearsed blockade operations around Taiwan and applied coast guard pressure against the island. A blockade would threaten semiconductor deliveries and give the Chinese Communist Party leverage over manufacturers well beyond Taiwan. The United States needs operational ships to deter that coercion and maintain deployments if deterrence fails.
In February, the White House’s Maritime Action Plan identified only eight American yards capable of building ships longer than 400 feet. The Government Accountability Office found that public yards completed only about 11% of attack-submarine depot maintenance on time over fiscal years 2016 through 2025. Submarines waiting for maintenance leave commanders with fewer boats available for patrols. Congress and the Navy should expand staffed dry docks and repair facilities alongside new construction, preserving more of the fleet’s availability as additional ships enter service.
Work on the waterfront
On October 10, Matson christened Makua at Hanwha Philly Shipyard, the first of three new Jones Act-compliant containerships in a roughly $1 billion construction program. The ship is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2027 for Matson’s Hawaii and China-Long Beach Express services. Matson is reusing a name from its earlier fleet: the original Makua was a freighter commissioned by the U.S. Shipping Board and acquired by the company in the 1920s.
Hanwha completed its acquisition of Philadelphia’s shipyard in 2024 and subsequently announced a $5 billion expansion plan. Orders for ten medium-range tankers give the yard a pipeline of commercial work, with the first delivery expected in early 2029. Philadelphia’s development authority advanced a lease proposal for roughly 47 additional acres in September. The investment would add production at an operating American yard, drawing on a Korean company with extensive experience building ships for international customers.
At Ingalls in Mississippi, HD Hyundai and Huntington Ingalls Industries are testing mechanized welding equipment in work that largely relies on manual welding. We should make it attractive for Korean and Japanese builders to establish more production here, with repeated orders large enough to justify the equipment and workforce they would need.
Anduril’s October 6 announcement proposed $3.7 billion in private investment at Sparrows Point for a facility manufacturing Virginia-class submarine components and modules. Its Navy contract is worth up to $2.9 billion, with payments tied to demonstrated production. The site retains waterfront and transportation connections from its steelmaking and shipbuilding years, giving a new manufacturer access to industrial infrastructure that would be difficult to assemble elsewhere. The yard had built Ancon, the steamship that made the Panama Canal’s inaugural transit in 1914. Maryland and Baltimore County should organize construction approvals around the planned factory, and employers should work with local schools to prepare people for the jobs it will create.
Orders worth building for
American yards built 2,710 Liberty ships during World War II, using standardized designs and production methods that brought thousands of workers into shipbuilding. Today’s yards need years of dependable work to invest in their own equipment and train the next generation. The administration’s August shipbuilding memorandum proposes using allied designs for selected naval and support ships while requiring participating suppliers to develop American production. Federal buyers should place successive orders for mature designs and resist changing them after construction begins. Commercial tankers and cargo ships should also help sustain the yards and suppliers between military orders.
The Maritime Administration counted just 190 American-flagged, self-propelled oceangoing merchant ships of at least 1,000 gross tons in August, including those serving domestic routes. Ships in international commerce sustain mariners whose qualifications also prepare them to carry military cargo during a crisis. Cargo preference requirements and the Maritime Security Program help preserve that workforce. A larger American merchant fleet should carry more of our exports and provide more careers at sea, with federal ship financing helping operators afford the vessels American yards build.
The Jones Act generally reserves cargo movements between American ports for American-built ships with qualifying American ownership and crews. It creates demand for American construction, although the price of those vessels can discourage coastal shipping. Expanding financing for domestic fleet renewal would give operators more reason to order ships and cargo owners more opportunity to move goods along our coasts. The investment belongs alongside expanded port facilities and rail connections, making waterborne transport a stronger part of the country’s internal freight network.
Senators Mark Kelly and Todd Young, with Representatives John Garamendi and Trent Kelly, have assembled a bipartisan coalition behind SHIPS for America legislation. Congress should use that support to expand ship financing and establish long-term demand for American construction. China-related maritime fees remain suspended during a one-year period that began last November. Companies considering a new yard need contracts they can finance over many years, beyond the next round of trade negotiations.
Federal and state agencies should review dredging and waterfront construction together under deadlines that let companies schedule the work. Apprenticeships should connect to employers with signed orders, giving trainees a path into paid work as the facilities open.
Philadelphia’s ten tanker orders should lead to further commercial contracts, keeping the yard in production and expanding employment through the 2030s. The Navy should likewise use its sustained demand to expand the number of qualified manufacturers, building on projects such as Sparrows Point and the American Arctic cutters. Over the next decade, those investments should leave the country with an expanding commercial fleet and enough construction and repair capacity to keep more of its Navy at sea. American businesses would gain more ways to reach customers abroad, backed by an industry here capable of sustaining that commerce.