United We Stand: How States can Contribute to Securing the Future of America’s Maritime Industrial Base
The MOC
By
Timothy Lee
February 3, 2026
Whether they be sailors, welders, mechanics, or students, the United States must prioritize its most valuable asset: its people. The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) malicious expansion of its armed forces necessitates a whole of nation approach from the United States to rebuild the American Maritime Industrial Base (MIB). Whereas the United States maintains a global military presence, the PRC need only concentrate its forces in the Indo-Pacific region. This difference in responsibility means that marginal gains in ship production for the U.S. MIB is not enough to keep pace with the PRC’s rapid military build up. The United States must out produce the PRC or risk being outgunned in a potential conflict. States have the capability to counter the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and complement federal efforts of revitalizing the MIB by (1) expanding education for the shipbuilding trades; (2) assist shipbuilding companies retain workers; (3) attract private investment; and (4) expand mining and refining infrastructure for steel.
Investing in Skilled Workforce Development
Skilled workforce shortages in the MIB have been a major cause for concern among shipbuilders. To illustrate the MIB’s incredible shortage and demand for skilled labor, in 2018 the Norfolk, Virginia area experienced a shortage of 3,130 workers in the critical trades to shipbuilding. Moreover, with fewer workers entering the shipbuilding workforce, the average age of a skilled worker in the shipbuilding trades being 56 years old, and a projected shortage of 2.1 million skilled manufacturing workers by 2030, the modern shipbuilding industry is dangerously close to a demographic collapse. To remedy this over the long term, states can expand educational opportunities for the shipbuilding trades to students.
In high schools, expanding Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs focussed on the shipbuilding trades would aid in publicizing and familiarizing students with useful skills relevant to the MIB. Especially considering that it takes an average of three to five years for skilled workers to acquire proficiency in the trade, training students early in the education step would prove valuable to saving time and assisting with the employment gap. North Point High School in Maryland sets an example of an extensive CTE program focused on welding that offers training, certification, college credit, and employment opportunities post-graduation.
Additional programs include the Navy’s Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing (ATDM) in Virginia, targeting high school graduates for defense industrial base employment that places 90 percent of its graduates into jobs; and the Haley Reeves Barbour Maritime Training Academy in Mississippi, offering an associate’s degree in collaboration with shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls’ apprentice school and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Programs such as the ATDM and the Mississippi training academy help illustrate the wide variety and flexibility of integrating a CTE education.
Creating industry pipelines enables the swift, effective, and applicable transition from the classroom to job site benefiting both students and shipbuilders across the country. Implementing the Maryland model for expanding CTE education will benefit all states. Virginia, California, Connecticut, and Mississippi, as states whose economies benefit the most from shipbuilding, should prioritize these efforts.
Assisting the Maritime Industrial Base Retain Workers:
Currently, retaining employees in the shipbuilding industry is more difficult than hiring. Five out of seven U.S. shipbuilders identified a shrinking wage in the shipbuilding industry versus other service and manufacturing jobs as a driver of the retention difficulty, with the industry maintaining a high turnover rate of an estimated 20 to 30 percent potentially costing millions of dollars annually. As such, measures to tie reduced corporate tax rates to lower turnover rates and housing assistance would provide much needed public-private partnerships to bolster the MIB workforce.
States such as Maryland and Maine maintain tax credits for job creating businesses and benefits for apprenticeships, as do most other states in some form. However, considering the significant industrial tax credits the 2024 SHIPS Act provides for investment in domestic shipyards, vessel repair, and manufacturing facilities, state leaders should consider further adjusting the corporate tax rate for shipbuilding companies based on job retention and creation. Many states with a large shipbuilding presence—including California, Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana—have a corporate tax rate at or above 5 percent. By cutting marginal corporate tax rates, companies in these states could see benefits such as employment expansion and wage increases that work to improve the retention of workers at shipyards. States can tie these tax cuts to how well companies, such as Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and other shipyards, perform to keep turnover rates low. In targeting turnover rates with the benefit of corporate tax cuts, companies have the flexibility to tailor their approach in addressing turnovers with measurable goals and financial benefits.
Attracting Private Investment and Securing Ports:
The Navy’s 2025 plan for a 381 ship fleet by the 2050s is near impossible to fulfill according to a Congressional Budget Office report without increased investment in the MIB infrastructure. Although federal efforts comprise the bulk of funding going towards shipyards, state and local authorities have the responsibility to attract private investment through fast-tracking the permitting process and construction of supporting infrastructure for new shipyards.
A 2025 report by McKinsey & Company details the benefits that private equity can bring to the shipbuilding industry. With a focus on cost management and armed with large capital stockpiles, private equity’s expanding entrance into the capital intensive maritime industry provides the possibility for a new turn in the U.S. MIB. For instance, in California, real estate development corporation California Forever, announced interest this year in planning to build a shipbuilding facility near the Bay area in light of federal funding. This proposed project would effectively construct a “greenfield shipyard” built on undeveloped land zoned for agriculture use that can have a new layout geared for the future. Various needs for this project have already been highlighted if construction were to proceed, including regulatory approvals as well as infrastructure, such as roads, water, sewage, and power. Locations in California, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York also offer the potential for establishing new or renovating former shipyards.
Expand Mining and Refining Infrastructure
States have the responsibility of managing the current and future resources needed to fuel the growth of the steel industry. The United States stands as the largest importer of steel in the world, excluding the European Union, and uses it extensively as a core material in shipbuilding. As increased demand for new ships leads to a growth in steel consumption, the production of steel and development of refineries within the United States must match its domestic appetite.
Concurrently, advancement in scrap metal recycling from end-of-life steel products should be aggressively pursued to further improve the domestic supply of steel. To produce steel products, iron from both mined iron ore and recycled scrap metal is used. However, whereas the current iron content in steel products is composed of 35 percent scrap metal and 65 percent mined iron, by 2030 scrap metal will supply 50 percent of the iron content for steel products but will decrease in available supply into a 15 million metric ton deficit. These figures illustrate a market where all players will demand more scrap metal with less supply that will not only impact the steel manufacturers and shipbuilders but the entire American economy, and states should make the proper investments in the scrap metal recycling industry to prepare. Expanding processes in recycling with electric arc furnaces, using electricity instead of conventional coal, boosts steel production and process efficiency. States with high expected growth in the scrap metal recycling industry such as California, Texas, and Washington should work with scrapping and steel producing companies to ramp up investment through energy agreements or other incentives to increase their presence and operations.
Timothy Lee is a student at Claremont McKenna College and a former intern at the Vandenberg Coalition
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Timothy Lee
Whether they be sailors, welders, mechanics, or students, the United States must prioritize its most valuable asset: its people. The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) malicious expansion of its armed forces necessitates a whole of nation approach from the United States to rebuild the American Maritime Industrial Base (MIB). Whereas the United States maintains a global military presence, the PRC need only concentrate its forces in the Indo-Pacific region. This difference in responsibility means that marginal gains in ship production for the U.S. MIB is not enough to keep pace with the PRC’s rapid military build up. The United States must out produce the PRC or risk being outgunned in a potential conflict. States have the capability to counter the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and complement federal efforts of revitalizing the MIB by (1) expanding education for the shipbuilding trades; (2) assist shipbuilding companies retain workers; (3) attract private investment; and (4) expand mining and refining infrastructure for steel.
Investing in Skilled Workforce Development
Skilled workforce shortages in the MIB have been a major cause for concern among shipbuilders. To illustrate the MIB’s incredible shortage and demand for skilled labor, in 2018 the Norfolk, Virginia area experienced a shortage of 3,130 workers in the critical trades to shipbuilding. Moreover, with fewer workers entering the shipbuilding workforce, the average age of a skilled worker in the shipbuilding trades being 56 years old, and a projected shortage of 2.1 million skilled manufacturing workers by 2030, the modern shipbuilding industry is dangerously close to a demographic collapse. To remedy this over the long term, states can expand educational opportunities for the shipbuilding trades to students.
In high schools, expanding Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs focussed on the shipbuilding trades would aid in publicizing and familiarizing students with useful skills relevant to the MIB. Especially considering that it takes an average of three to five years for skilled workers to acquire proficiency in the trade, training students early in the education step would prove valuable to saving time and assisting with the employment gap. North Point High School in Maryland sets an example of an extensive CTE program focused on welding that offers training, certification, college credit, and employment opportunities post-graduation.
Additional programs include the Navy’s Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing (ATDM) in Virginia, targeting high school graduates for defense industrial base employment that places 90 percent of its graduates into jobs; and the Haley Reeves Barbour Maritime Training Academy in Mississippi, offering an associate’s degree in collaboration with shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls’ apprentice school and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Programs such as the ATDM and the Mississippi training academy help illustrate the wide variety and flexibility of integrating a CTE education.
Creating industry pipelines enables the swift, effective, and applicable transition from the classroom to job site benefiting both students and shipbuilders across the country. Implementing the Maryland model for expanding CTE education will benefit all states. Virginia, California, Connecticut, and Mississippi, as states whose economies benefit the most from shipbuilding, should prioritize these efforts.
Assisting the Maritime Industrial Base Retain Workers:
Currently, retaining employees in the shipbuilding industry is more difficult than hiring. Five out of seven U.S. shipbuilders identified a shrinking wage in the shipbuilding industry versus other service and manufacturing jobs as a driver of the retention difficulty, with the industry maintaining a high turnover rate of an estimated 20 to 30 percent potentially costing millions of dollars annually. As such, measures to tie reduced corporate tax rates to lower turnover rates and housing assistance would provide much needed public-private partnerships to bolster the MIB workforce.
States such as Maryland and Maine maintain tax credits for job creating businesses and benefits for apprenticeships, as do most other states in some form. However, considering the significant industrial tax credits the 2024 SHIPS Act provides for investment in domestic shipyards, vessel repair, and manufacturing facilities, state leaders should consider further adjusting the corporate tax rate for shipbuilding companies based on job retention and creation. Many states with a large shipbuilding presence—including California, Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana—have a corporate tax rate at or above 5 percent. By cutting marginal corporate tax rates, companies in these states could see benefits such as employment expansion and wage increases that work to improve the retention of workers at shipyards. States can tie these tax cuts to how well companies, such as Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and other shipyards, perform to keep turnover rates low. In targeting turnover rates with the benefit of corporate tax cuts, companies have the flexibility to tailor their approach in addressing turnovers with measurable goals and financial benefits.
Attracting Private Investment and Securing Ports:
The Navy’s 2025 plan for a 381 ship fleet by the 2050s is near impossible to fulfill according to a Congressional Budget Office report without increased investment in the MIB infrastructure. Although federal efforts comprise the bulk of funding going towards shipyards, state and local authorities have the responsibility to attract private investment through fast-tracking the permitting process and construction of supporting infrastructure for new shipyards.
A 2025 report by McKinsey & Company details the benefits that private equity can bring to the shipbuilding industry. With a focus on cost management and armed with large capital stockpiles, private equity’s expanding entrance into the capital intensive maritime industry provides the possibility for a new turn in the U.S. MIB. For instance, in California, real estate development corporation California Forever, announced interest this year in planning to build a shipbuilding facility near the Bay area in light of federal funding. This proposed project would effectively construct a “greenfield shipyard” built on undeveloped land zoned for agriculture use that can have a new layout geared for the future. Various needs for this project have already been highlighted if construction were to proceed, including regulatory approvals as well as infrastructure, such as roads, water, sewage, and power. Locations in California, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York also offer the potential for establishing new or renovating former shipyards.
Expand Mining and Refining Infrastructure
States have the responsibility of managing the current and future resources needed to fuel the growth of the steel industry. The United States stands as the largest importer of steel in the world, excluding the European Union, and uses it extensively as a core material in shipbuilding. As increased demand for new ships leads to a growth in steel consumption, the production of steel and development of refineries within the United States must match its domestic appetite.
Concurrently, advancement in scrap metal recycling from end-of-life steel products should be aggressively pursued to further improve the domestic supply of steel. To produce steel products, iron from both mined iron ore and recycled scrap metal is used. However, whereas the current iron content in steel products is composed of 35 percent scrap metal and 65 percent mined iron, by 2030 scrap metal will supply 50 percent of the iron content for steel products but will decrease in available supply into a 15 million metric ton deficit. These figures illustrate a market where all players will demand more scrap metal with less supply that will not only impact the steel manufacturers and shipbuilders but the entire American economy, and states should make the proper investments in the scrap metal recycling industry to prepare. Expanding processes in recycling with electric arc furnaces, using electricity instead of conventional coal, boosts steel production and process efficiency. States with high expected growth in the scrap metal recycling industry such as California, Texas, and Washington should work with scrapping and steel producing companies to ramp up investment through energy agreements or other incentives to increase their presence and operations.
Timothy Lee is a student at Claremont McKenna College and a former intern at the Vandenberg Coalition
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.