America’s Navy is Collapsing. Can Trump Save It?

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? What specific steps should 
Trump and the US government take to address the  

US Navy’s problems and beat China? Leave your 
expertly crafted analysis in the comments below.

Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thank 
you for watching America Uncovered.