{"id":29910,"date":"2025-01-07T21:25:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T21:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/trump-threatens-to-tap-allies-for-military-shipbuilding-if-us-cant-produce\/"},"modified":"2025-01-07T21:25:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T21:25:51","slug":"trump-threatens-to-tap-allies-for-military-shipbuilding-if-us-cant-produce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/trump-threatens-to-tap-allies-for-military-shipbuilding-if-us-cant-produce\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens to tap allies for military shipbuilding if US can’t produce"},"content":{"rendered":"

President-elect Donald Trump,<\/a> fed up with the U.S.’ lagging ship-building capabilities, offered an out-of-character solution to the problem: Outsource production if the U.S. can\u2019t keep up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re going to do something with ships. We need ships. And we may have to go a different route than you would normally go,” the incoming president suggested to radio host Hugh Hewitt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We don\u2019t build ships anymore. We used to build a ship a day. We don\u2019t build ships anymore. We want to get that started. And maybe we\u2019ll use allies, also, in terms of building ships. We might have to.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

He noted China\u2019s vast outpacing<\/a> of American shipbuilding capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“China\u2019s building, from what I\u2019m hearing, every four days, they\u2019re knocking out a ship. We\u2019re sitting back and watching, and we\u2019ve suffered tremendously.”<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s stance is sure to put the domestic shipbuilding industry and labor groups on alert. But it comes as China\u2019s shipbuilding capacity is more than 232 times greater than that of the U.S., and the Navy has for decades struggled to build ships on time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it’s a divergence from his campaign promise to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and trigger a blanket tariff on global imports<\/a> into the U.S., along with a 60% tariff on all goods imported from China.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s navy is the largest in the world, with more than 370 ships and submarines. The U.S.’ battle force includes 295 vessels, including 11 active aircraft carriers. In 2017, Congress passed a law requiring the Navy to keep and maintain 355 ships.\u00a0<\/p>\n

US, IRAQI FORCES UNLEASH AIRSTRIKE ON ISIS TARGETS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Without disclosing details, Trump hinted at a plan to grow the Navy’s ship fleet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re going to be announcing some things that are going to be very good having to do with the Navy. We need ships. We have to get ships. And you know, everybody said, \u2018Oh, we\u2019ll build them.\u2019 We may have to go to others, bid them out, and it\u2019s okay to do that. We\u2019ll bid them out until we get ourselves ready,” he said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. also lags in nuclear submarines, according to military experts. The U.S.\u2019 nuclear submarines reached a Cold War high of 140, according to\u00a0Jerry Hendrix, retired Navy captain\u00a0and senior fellow<\/u><\/a> at the Sagamore Institute, in an op-ed for American Affairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The bottom line is that the American submarine force, the \u2018point of the spear\u2019 of American power, upon which so many military plans depend, is unprepared to meet the current threat environment, and there are no quick fixes. It has taken decades\u2014and a sequence of bad assump\u00adtions and poor decisions\u2014to fall into the current state of unpreparedness,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

NEW ORLEANS, LAS VEGAS SUSPECTS LATEST IN LONG LINE OF MILITARY RADICALS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The most recent figures show the U.S. submarine flight at 68, only 50 of which are classified in the hunter-killer “fast attack” category.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Currently, China controls 46.59% of the global shipbuilding market. South Korea comes in second at 29.24%, and Japan third with 17.25%. The U.S. has a relatively insignificant control of the market at 0.13%. And it costs roughly twice as much to build a ship in the U.S. as it does elsewhere in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Congress’ $895 billion annual defense policy bill authorized $33.5 billion for new ships and submarines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to a Navy report last year, several key shipbuilding programs are years behind schedule, in large part due to a lack of workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump also called out management of the Navy\u2019s Constellation-class frigate program, blaming Biden-era officers for “playing around and tinkering,” adding to costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking with Hewitt, Trump seemed to refer to a deal the Pentagon struck with the American arm of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri for the new class of ships in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And they were going and really doing a good job, and the generals, you know, the Biden admirals and generals and all of the people that are involved, they started playing around and tinkering and changing the design, and this, you know, that costs. That costs a lot of money,” Trump said.<\/p>\n

“But the generals or the admirals went in, and they said, \u2018Oh, why don\u2019t we make it a little bit wider? Why don\u2019t we do this? Why don\u2019t we do that?\u2019 And it was designed specifically for speed and other things. When you start making it wider, you start making it slower,” Trump continued.<\/p>\n

“We had it down, and they made changes. They always have to make changes. You know, these guys get in there, and they think they\u2019re smart, and in many cases, unfortunately, they\u2019re not smart, and they take something, and they make it worse for a lot more.”<\/p>\n

Then-President Ronald Reagan<\/a> had a 600-ship goal for the Navy when he assumed office, dedicated to rebuilding the nation’s fleet after the Vietnam War. But his administration also terminated a subsidy for shipbuilding that decimated the commercial market, meaning U.S. shipyards were solely dedicated to meeting the needs of the military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President-elect Donald Trump, fed up with the U.S.’ lagging ship-building capabilities, offered an out-of-character solution to the problem: Outsource production if the U.S. can\u2019t keep up.\u00a0 “We\u2019re going to do something with ships. We need ships. And we may have to go a different route than you would normally go,” the incoming president suggested to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}