MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The U.S. is no longer a player in the commercial shipbuilding business. President Trump wants to change that. Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom reports from a city that historically was one of America's biggest shipbuilders.
STEPHAN BISAHA, BYLINE: There's this old, rotted-out dock a short drive from Mobile, Alabama, mostly just loose planks and some scattered pylons sticking out of the Tensaw River. This is the graveyard of the ghost fleet.
JOHN SLEDGE: Oh, it's a spooky site, for sure.
BISAHA: John Sledge is a historian at the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf. At one time, this dock was filled with hundreds of liberty ships. Thousands were built during World War II to carry needed supplies to Europe. Commercial ships are often called up during wartime for supply runs.
SLEDGE: When you think about war, we always think about the sharp end of the spear. But all of that support and logistics is absolutely vital.
BISAHA: And the U.S. decided after World War II to keep these liberty ships around for decades to use in future wars.
SLEDGE: And that was the origin of the ghost fleet. Let's mothball these vessels so that should the alarm go up, they can quickly be remobilized and put into service.
BISAHA: But those ships have since been decommissioned, and the days of the U.S. as a major commercial shipbuilder are gone. And that's a serious problem for the country's national security, according to Republican lawmakers, Democrats and Bradley Byrne. He's the head of the Mobile Chamber of Commerce.
BRADLEY BYRNE: I think it's been bad for America and certainly bad for our area that we produce so few commercial ships in the United States.
BISAHA: Now, the U.S. does have private shipyards, typically building military ships. But it costs about four times as much to build a commercial ship in the U.S. compared to a country like China, which is the largest maker of ships in the world. In fact, in 2022, China built nearly 1,800 huge, ocean-crossing commercial ships. The U.S. built just five.
BYRNE: So what if we're in a war with China? We can't use their ships. So this is a national security problem as much as it is a problem for our economy.
BISAHA: So the Trump administration's solution? Make Chinese ships pay to dock. Starting in October, any Chinese-built or operated commercial ship will be charged port fees. American ships won't have to pay, so they'll be cheaper to use. And that's causing those private U.S. shipyards to consider getting back into the commercial game. Chris Kastner is the head of HII. It's the largest shipbuilder in the U.S. During a recent earnings call, he said there are a lot of tailwinds behind commercial shipbuilding.
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CHRIS KASTNER: Now, it's not easy. It takes time. These are heavy manufacturing facilities and equipment. But I think it's only positive for HII and positive for shipbuilding.
BISAHA: Of course, there are a lot of headwinds, too, including tariffs that are depressing international trade. Mike Lee runs the shipping logistics company Page & Jones out of Mobile.
MIKE LEE: There's an old proverb I'd heard that said, you don't kill a mosquito on your friend's forehead with a hatchet.
BISAHA: What he means is that tariffs have already caused a drop in trade into U.S. ports, so there isn't much need to build new ships when trade is down.
LEE: I don't know why you would invest in a ship right now, even an American flagship or a Chinese flagship. I think you're going to see shipyards falling off around the world, even in China and Korea and the places that they're all moving to.
BISAHA: These new port fees will be based on cargo size. And Lee says consumers will ultimately have to pay for them with higher prices. Now, shippers could avoid these troubled waters by using ships made in America, but building new ships could take years. These new port fees start in October.
For NPR News, I'm Stephan Bisaha in Mobile, Alabama. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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