Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security for America Act of 2025
A BILL
To support the national defense and economic security of the United States by supporting vessels, ports, and shipyards of the United States and the U.S. maritime workforce.
Sec. 2 Findings
Congress finds the following:
Strategic sealift, made up of Government and commercial vessels and mariners, is a critical capability for executing the maritime defense strategy and the wartime and peacetime economy of the United States.
Ensuring a modern and ready capability will require significant investment, policy prioritization, and the innovation of the people of the United States.
The worldwide ocean economy is worth between $3,000,000,000,000 and $6,000,000,000,000, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Yet, vessels of the United States carry less than 2 percent of United States international commercial cargoes by weight.
The United States has fewer than 200 oceangoing vessels of the United States, of which only approximately 80 vessels participate in international commerce, compared with more than 5,500 Chinese documented vessels.
Bracketed by the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, the prosperity and security of the United States has always been tied to its position as a maritime Nation. Throughout human history, the strength of maritime nations has been directly tied to the strength of their maritime industry. The United States won two world wars on the back of a strong maritime industry.
Decades of apathy by the United States Government has harmed our strategically important maritime industry. Our weakened shipbuilding capacity, undersized maritime workforce, and shrinking fleet of shipping vessels means the United States relies on other nations to conduct international commerce and lacks the strategic sealift to support the United States military during wartime.
Today, there are just 20 shipbuilders in the United States capable of building oceangoing vessels—down from more than 80 at the end of the Second World War.
During World War II, the United States Merchant Marine powered the Allies to victory with more than 10,000 oceangoing vessels of the United States. Today there are just 80 vessels of the United States engaged in international trade.
The People’s Republic of China has made investments in the maritime industry a strategic priority over the past 20 years.
As of 2023, shipyards in the United States had fewer than 5 shipbuilding orders for oceangoing vessels, while shipyards in the People’s Republic of China had more than 1,700 orders, according to BRS Group. According to the Office of Naval Intelligence, the People’s Republic of China became the world’s top shipbuilding and shipping nation, boasting 230 times more shipbuilding capacity than the United States.
With just 12,000 United States merchant mariners operating oceangoing vessels, the United States may not have a sufficient number of mariners to fully power the strategic sealift vessels necessary in a future prolonged conflict.
The American Civil Society of Engineers assesses that the United States has a national maintenance backlog amounting to $125,000,000,000 for bridges, $163,000,000,000 for ports, and $6,800,000,000 for inland waterways.
The maritime industry is inherently international. Eighty percent of United States goods are imported by sea, of which 98 percent come into the United States on foreign documented vessels. Only 2 percent of such goods come into the United States on vessels of the United States, leaving the United States economy disproportionately dependent on oceangoing trade controlled by often adversarial foreign nations. The Nation’s ability to provide services in both international and interstate commerce is critical to national and economic defense.
Since November 2023, vessels engaged in international commerce have been threatened by the Houthis, which has threatened global supply chains, increased costs, and required naval force protection operations in the Red Sea through the United States-led Operation Prosperity Guardian that formed in December 2023.
A fleet of commercial shipping vessels of the United States, crewed with citizen mariners, that is competitive in domestic and international trade enhances the United States military’s readiness, allows the United States to more strategically compete with China, and underwrites the security and survival of the United States in times of crisis and war.
Sec. 3 Sense of Congress
It is the sense of Congress that the United States must—
create a more favorable domestic and global maritime environment for vessels of the United States engaged in international commerce, shipbuilding, ship repair, maritime logistics, the maritime workforce, and naval power, contributing to assured access to the world’s oceans free from coercion from strategic competitors and asymmetric adversaries;
increase domestic shipbuilding and ship repair capacity, with programs and policies that enable the growth of United States shipyards and the maritime industrial base, enhance military sealift capacity, expand the United States maritime workforce, and enhance national security;
revitalize the international fleet of vessels of the United States and foster a comparative advantage for the United States through targeted incentives and regulatory reforms to make the fleet competitive with international carriers and to gain a sustainable share of the global maritime market in order to bolster supply chains, strengthen economic security, and lower prices, while protecting the United States economy from economic coercion;
take all measures necessary to ensure that sufficient military, civil, and commercial resources will be available with assured access to meet defense deployment needs and essential economic activities for our Nation in times of crisis, war, or peace;
recognize that a vibrant commercial shipbuilding industry provides supply chain resiliencies and creates economies of scale that improve military, Coast Guard, and Government shipbuilding and support military operations through strategic sealift to defend the freedom of the seas;
nurture the comparative advantages of the United States to innovate to better compete in the global maritime marketplace, grow the maritime workforce, and create a favorable environment for investments to build modern maritime facilities and world-class academic institutions;
ensure better coordination between Federal agencies, including the Maritime Administration, the United States Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, the Federal Maritime Commission, and all other Federal agencies with a maritime nexus, to protect, regulate, and support the United States maritime industry, resolve disputes, and implement a whole-of-Government national maritime strategy;
recognize that, while a strong Navy is the surest guarantee of peace, building the Navy, sustaining the Navy, and supplying the Navy is founded on a robust commercial industrial base;
establish reliable long-term demand signals for, and investments in, oceangoing commercial vessels that are built in the United States, documented under the laws of the United States, and crewed by United States mariners;
evaluate past and present maritime efforts to take actions to revitalize the United States maritime industry;
strengthen the United States intercoastal and domestic trade fleet, which is the foundation upon which a revitalized United States-documented shipping and domestic shipbuilding industry will be built;
recognize the important role that the support craft, passenger, and fishing vessel fleet play in the United States maritime industry;
encourage the shipping of commercial cargo on vessels of the United States, with the aim of growing the size and carrying capacity of the international fleet of vessels of the United States;
grow the shipping capacity of vessels of the United States and guarantee United States Government cargo during peacetime;
develop a whole-of-Government effort to expand, develop, and protect the maritime workforce;
recognize the need for more workers in the maritime sector and stimulate growth in the United States maritime and shipbuilding industries, including by increasing access to early maritime education, commissioning national marketing campaigns to demonstrate how United States shipbuilding, United States-documented shipping, and maritime workers are critical to national security, and implementing workforce accelerator programs;
remove barriers to training mariners, including reevaluating Coast Guard training requirements regarding faculty credentials, instructional facility designs, sea time requirements, and other identified barriers, consistent with international treaty obligations;
expand and nurture a robust mariner workforce that enhances the national security and strategic sealift readiness of the United States by increasing the number of United States mariners and improving existing pathways and establishing new pathways for new, current, and former merchant mariners to go to sea;
recognize that the United States Merchant Marine Academy and our State maritime academies are critical to training the next generation of licensed officers and engineers on vessels of the United States;
invest and innovate in domestic shipbuilding, ship repair, and the shipping capabilities and capacity of vessels of the United States to advance the power and influence of the maritime industry of the United States;
drive multi-stakeholder research, development, assessment, and deployment of emerging marine technologies and best practices related to the maritime transportation system to ensure United States leadership in next-generation shipbuilding, ship repair, and maritime logistics;
drive modern business and manufacturing approaches, such as innovative maritime logistics, clean fuels, and advanced nuclear energy, human-machine teaming, additive manufacturing, and other advanced technologies;
review and update regulations governing vessel design and engineering, vessel and facility operation, and merchant mariner credentialing, in order to revitalize the United States maritime industry;
seek mutually beneficial relationships with treaty allies and strategic partners to grow the domestic shipping and shipbuilding industries of the United States and to share the burden of providing freedom of navigation on the high seas, while de-risking the United States maritime domain from the People’s Republic of China, foreign countries of concern, and asymmetric or emerging maritime threats;
harden critical maritime infrastructure and networks, and incrementally replace infrastructure built by foreign adversaries with domestic-built and allied-built infrastructure; and
promote the values of the United States for freedom of the seas, worker safety and quality of life, environmental stewardship, and the resilience of our oceans, seas, and inland waterways.
Sec. 4 Definitions
In this Act:
Appropriate committees of Congress— The term appropriate committees of Congress means—
the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate; and
the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.
Domestic commerce— The term domestic commerce means the transportation of goods or passengers between places in the United States.
Foreign commerce— The term foreign commerce means—
commerce or trade between the United States, its territories or possessions, or the District of Columbia, and a foreign country; and
commerce or trade between foreign countries.
Foreign country of concern— The term foreign country of concern means—
a country that is a covered nation (as defined in section 4872(d) of title 10, United States Code); and
any country that the Maritime Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission, determines to be engaged in conduct that is detrimental to the national security or foreign policy of the United States.
Foreign entity— The term foreign entity—
means—
a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party, as those terms are defined in section 1 of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended (22 U.S.C. 611);
a natural person who is not a lawful permanent resident of the United States, a citizen of the United States, or any other protected individual (as such term is defined in section 274B(a)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3))); or
a partnership, association, corporation, organization, or other combination of persons organized under the laws of or having its principal place of business in a foreign country; and
includes—
any person (including an owner or operator of a vessel) owned by, controlled by, or subject to the direction of an entity listed in subparagraph (A);
any person, wherever located, who acts as an agent, representative, or employee of an entity listed in subparagraph (A);
any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of an entity listed in subparagraph (A), or of a person whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by an entity listed in subparagraph (A);
any person who directly or indirectly through any contract, arrangement, understanding, relationship, or otherwise, owns 25 percent or more of the equity interests of an entity listed in subparagraph (A);
any person with significant responsibility to control, manage, or direct an entity listed in subparagraph (A);
any person, wherever located, who is a citizen or resident of a country controlled by an entity listed in subparagraph (A); or
any corporation, partnership, association, or other organization organized under the laws of a country controlled by an entity listed in subparagraph (A).
Foreign entity of concern— The term foreign entity of concern means any foreign entity that is—
designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Secretary of State under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189);
included on the list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury;
owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a government of a foreign country of concern;
alleged by the Attorney General to have been involved in activities for which a conviction was obtained under—
chapter 37 of title 18, United States Code (commonly known as the “Espionage Act”) (18 U.S.C. 792 et seq.);
section 951 or 1030 of title 18, United States Code;
chapter 90 of title 18, United States Code (commonly known as the “Economic Espionage Act of 1996”);
the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.);
section 224, 225, 226, 227, or 236 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2274, 2275, 2276, 2277, and 2284);
the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (50 U.S.C. 4801 et seq.); or
the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.);
designated by the Federal Maritime Commission as a controlled carrier under chapter 407 of title 46, United States Code;
found by the Federal Maritime Commission to be practicing unfavorable conditions in foreign trade under chapter 421 or 423 of title 46, United States Code; or
determined by the Maritime Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission, to be engaged in unauthorized conduct that is detrimental to the national security or foreign policy of the United States.
Vessel of the United States— The term vessel of the United States has the meaning given that term in section 116 of title 46, United States Code.