Shipbuilding: Patience or Dispair?

walk it off

I am sure that most navalists have had a moment or two in the last few months where they’ve wanted to shuffle down to the basement to get their ready sackcloth and ashes and roll in the doom.

The news can lead you that way. Let’s check in with Paul Berger at WSJ;

In the first major speech to Congress of his second term, President Trump vowed to resurrect American shipbuilding.

Four months later, Trump’s ambitious plans to reverse decades of maritime-industry decline are sputtering.

Are they? Maybe sputtering or trying to find their footing in the chaos. It’s the first few months of an administration dealing with a low-boil naval conflict in the Red Sea, year two of the war between Iranian proxies (and, no kidding, Iran) and Israel, year four of the Russo-Ukrainian War, a nervous NATO, an expanding China, and whatever’s up with Taylor Swift.

Oh, and Trump has only been in office for six months, and it has been only 120 days since the March speech.

120 days.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said during a June 10 hearing that he was disappointed with the administration’s budget request for the Navy for the next fiscal year, in particular a reduction in the shipbuilding budget to less than $21 billion from $37 billion the prior year.

Wicker said the request reflected efforts to “game the budget” in anticipation of extra money being made available from so-called reconciliation funds that Congress can approve outside the broader budget process. He also said he was alarmed the request didn’t include the usual procurement of destroyers. “Failing to include two destroyers in this year’s budget request destabilizes industry, shows bad faith and slows our shipbuilding efforts,” he said.

Trump’s top budget official, Russ Vought, has denied cuts are being made to shipbuilding. Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, in a post on X following the hearing said the total shipbuilding request for the coming year is $47.4 billion, about 21% above the prior year’s budget. “We simply use both discretionary and mandatory spending on the One Big Beautiful bill to do it,” Vought said.

OMB officials note that two destroyers are included in the tax-and-spending bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday and that has been sent back to the House for final touches.

…

The senior administration official said: “The right-sizing of the NSC has made processes more streamlined and efficient.”

Robert Obayda, founder of market research firm Rivertes Group and a former official in the office who co-wrote the shipbuilding executive order, said: “If you remove them from the equation or reduce their size to two people, I just don’t see how you accomplish that [maritime] goal.”

Brent Sadler, a maritime specialist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said he believes the shipbuilding office has enough people to execute the administration’s agenda. He said he is more concerned that the White House hasn’t yet managed to confirm a Maritime Administration chief or name a nominee to oversee Navy shipbuilding.

The Trump administration has put forward former Maersk Line executive Stephen Carmel to lead the Maritime Administration, which oversees U.S. maritime programs, including the Merchant Marine. A nomination for the assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, which coordinates Navy shipbuilding, has yet to be made.

Sadler, a one-time Trump nominee to run the Maritime Administration, said the two roles are essential to putting maritime executive orders into action. If the administration doesn’t put those officials in place soon, Sadler said: “There’s a probability things are going to get stalled before they get under way.”

The SECNAV has been clear by his travel schedule and words this is where his focus is. He doesn’t even have his full team in place (hello Senate).

As I like to say, I’m a closet optimist. It is way too early to call doom, and if we reach that point I’ll let you know.

The President has said the right things. We have some of the right people in the House and Senate standing by to fill any gaps they see coming from the incomplete Executive Branch team.

Industry cannot turn on a dime, and the “system” is slow to respond to rudder commands.

Trust but verify? Absolutely, but for now, put the sackcloth and ashes back in the ready box.

As the full Navy team gets in place, there will be plenty to discuss. At the end of the day, we should be better than where we were. The global strategic situation demands it.