The US Navy is plagued with delays and failed projects.
While China, now boasts the largest navy in the world.
Can Trump turn things around and make US naval power great again?
Welcome to America Uncovered. I’m Chris Chappell.
I’ve been warning for years that the US Navy is in serious dire straits.
It’s like watching a ship slowly sink ,
except since this is the Navy, it’s not like that, it is that.
It needs to get its act together,
especially with China beefing up its navy.
According to a leaked 2023 US Navy analysis,
“China’s Shipbuilding Capacity is 232 Times Greater Than That of the United States”.
In other words, China can make a whole lot more ships than America.
Now I know what you might be thinking, sure,
but what about the quality?
Well first of all, quantity is its own type of quality,
and as you’ll see in a bit,
the US quality isn’t so hot anymore either.
Right now, China has 370 ships,
while the US only has 296.
And that number is actually shrinking.
But China is growing.
In 5 years China will have 425 ships,
absolutely dwarfing the number of US ships.
The scope of this problem has just been revealed thanks to this new report
by the Government Accountability Office.
“U.S. Navy Shipbuilding Is Consistently Over Budget and Delayed”
Oh. That doesn’t sound very good.
Especially with a war with China looming on the horizon.
The report says, “Despite nearly doubling its shipbuilding budget
over the last 2 decades, the U.S. Navy hasn’t increased its number of ships.”
Spending more money for less?
Who’s running the Navy? California?
There are a few reasons this has happened.
For one, some shipyards don’t have enough room to do what the Navy wants in time.
Some also have just really, really old infrastructure
that can delay construction and repair.
It’s like asking someone to bake you the world’s largest black forest cake,
but they only have an easy bake oven… from 1963 .
There’s also the fact that shipbuilders just don’t have enough workers
to meet the Navy’s demands
. It’s surprisingly not a lucrative job.
And even with the workers
already in the industry, a majority of them just don’t have enough experience
So it takes more time and money to just maintain what the US already has,
let alone building more ships to counter China.
Because, as it turns out, building ships is hard.
Even when they’re not in a bottle .
So despite billions of dollars of investment into getting the US to crank out more ships,
there’s still not enough shipyards or workers.
And that’s because, according to the new report,
the US Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense
aren’t “fully coordinating their shipbuilding investments
to prevent duplication or overlap in spending”.
Communication problems.
I don’t know if they need budget management or couples counseling.
Another problem is that the Navy hasn’t even set goals
or measurable targets for what to do with all that money.
Unfortunately, this poor communication is considered a feature, not a bug.
A very expensive, naive bug with poor communication skills.
Navy leadership discourages using quality control tools such as monetary penalties
if contractors submit late and/or poor-quality work.
In other words if they screw up, they still get the money.
You wouldn’t handle your money like that.
But the government, will handle your money like that.
The Navy has also actually reduced inspections by almost 50 percent,
all for the sake of maintaining “strong working relations” with contractors.
That’d be like hiring a guy to redo your bathroom,
he reworks the plumbing to make the contents of your septic tank
shoot out of your shower head, you say,
“Great job!” because you want to make sure
he wants to work with you on other future projects.
To make matters worse, the Navy doesn’t even have a strategy
for managing the US’s ship industrial base—
that’s the system of shipyards, suppliers, workers,
and infrastructure that supports building and maintaining ships.
The Navy’s theme song should be changed from “In the Navy” to “Living on a Prayer.
And the Navy is sending so many mixed messages to shipyards,
they have no idea what to expect from one year to the next.
“The Navy's plans for building and repairing ships vary from year to year.”
So that’s like asking someone to bake you the world’s largest black forest cake,
but they only have an easy bake oven… from 1963 .
And then halfway through you say,
“Nevermind. I actually want a beef wellington.
Priorities are screwed up as well.
Take the very expensive, new USS Gerald Ford.
“the Navy ditched battle-tested features found on previous carriers
and instead went with more expensive technology
that hasn’t always worked out as expected.”
Yeah that’s a good way to spend more money and not have more ships.
Probably one of the worst examples in recent history of Navy mismanagement
was only publicly reported last December.
The Navy wanted to modernize 7 guided-missile cruisers
.Upgrade them so they could get a few
more years of service out of them.
5 years. Okay. Fine. Makes sense.
Only 3 were completed.
And none of them will get the full 5 extra years of service life.
The Navy wasted $1.8 billion dollars on that.
This was such a brutal blow to the US I’m surprised the remnants of
ISIS didn’t try to claim responsibility for it.
Clearly, something needs fixing.
But apparently the Navy isn’t taking those recommendations seriously
. Because to them, if it ain’t broke…
actually it is broke, but still don’t fix it.
In another recent report, the Government Accountability Office said it had made
90 recommendations to the Navy since 2015.
The Navy agreed with many of them,
but “has only fully or partially addressed 30,
with 60 recommendations unaddressed.”
This is an immediate problem.
Some experts think China will try to invade Taiwan in 2027.
That’s 2 years from now.
Is the US Navy capable of fighting a war like that?
Or are we S.O.L.: ship out of luck.
Well, the Trump Administration is trying to do something.
But it’s very late in the day.
China builds more than half the world’s ships.
But that’s about to get very expensive for China
and any company or country that uses them.
Trump wants to charge Chinese ships $1million dollars for every port call.
And most ships make around 3 port calls per voyage to the US.
Trump also announced the creation of a new Office of Shipbuilding in the White House.
And put out an executive order called Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance.
Various government agencies will work together with the White House to create a “Maritime Action Plan
.” It’s about countering China and building back up America’s Maritime Industrial Base.
It calls for a ton of reviews on shipbuilding programs,
procurement rules, regulations,
and the US maritime workforce,
as well as new funding mechanisms and financial incentives
to promote investments into US shipyards and subcomponent supply chains.
So essentially, all the things that would have
been common sense to do years ago.
Revolutionary, I know.
There’s also a bunch of red tape getting cut.
And even DOGE is getting in on the action.
They’ll do their own review of the DoD
and Homeland Security vessel procurement processes.
And as always, Trump is putting an emphasis on education.
He wants to modernize the US Merchant Marine Academy.
These guys are critical to sea-based commerce during peace
and the transportation of cargo and personnel by sea during war.
Very important job.
But the number of them has declined
from roughly 50,000 in 1960 to less than 10,000 today.
I haven’t seen a decline that sharp in the same timeframe
outside of Bill Cosby’s fanbase.
This was a priority for Trump even back during his first term in office.
Trump also wants to offer scholarships to maritime experts
from allied countries
to teach at US institutions.
Probably Japan and South Korea.
Navy Secretary John Phelan has been busy visiting a lot of shipyards
and building relationships with partners to aid in shipbuilding.
He made his first international trip to Japan,
And then to South Korea,
two powerful shipbuilding allies .
that the US wants closer collaboration with
It’s still early in Trump's second term so I’m sure there will be more developments
But the clock is ticking.
And we don’t want to be SOL.
But what do you think?
Leave your expertly crafted analysis in the comments below.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thank you for watching America Uncovered.