Trump Signs Order Expanding America’s Shipbuilding Capacity

President Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Thursday aimed at enhancing America’s depleted shipbuilding capacity.

“The United States Navy has experienced a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures, which have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations. The lack of capacity and competition among shipbuilders has resulted in large backlogs of orders across six major Navy shipbuilding programs and a commercial shipbuilding sector that is not globally competitive,” the order reads. “The Department of War shall restore both capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base as it expands our naval force structure.”

Titled, “Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base,” the directive includes several prongs that seek to build upon a separate shipbuilding edict signed by the president last year. The new order specifically opens the door to increased collaboration with allied nations on shipbuilding, the establishment of a new public shipyard, and technological changes to the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier.

Using a memorandum of understanding signed by the United States and Finland last year on medium icebreaker construction as a blueprint, Trump ordered that the “Finland Model” be expanded to three different classes of ships. As described by gCaptain magazine, the Finland Model permits “foreign shipbuilders [to] initially construct up to two vessels overseas before shifting subsequent construction to the United States.”

Among the prerequisites for the model is that the foreign supplier must “simultaneously build[] a new shipyard in the United States or assume[] ownership or a majority equity position in an existing shipyard in the United States, and build[] all ships after the first two such ships in United States shipyards.” It also mandates that these entities “hire[] and train[] an American citizen workforce for the United States shipyards” and “source[] a United States supply chain for construction and maintenance of all ships at the United States shipyards.”

The edict also directs Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, in consultation with Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, to submit a plan within 120 days aimed at enhancing “nuclear-powered submarine and aircraft carrier readiness” that is supposed to include the “use of private sector capabilities” and creation of a fifth public Navy Yard.

This new yard is to possess the “sufficient drydock capacity” needed to assist with the upkeep and maintenance of the nation’s growing submarine fleet. The plan is to assess potential locations near the U.S. Pacific Fleet, including those in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and existing U.S. territories.

The memo’s final major prong directs Hegseth, in consultation with Cao, to submit a plan within 60 days that requires “measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction” of the future USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), an upcoming Ford-class aircraft carrier. As noted by gCaptain, “The move would represent a major departure from the technologies introduced aboard the Ford class and potentially require significant redesign work on a carrier already under construction.”

The edict builds upon the president’s April 2025 executive order and subsequent “Maritime Action Plan” aimed at reversing America’s shipbuilding decline. As The Federalist previously reported, this decades-long trend has resulted in the Navy retiring ships faster than the country can build new ones, with the naval fleet shrinking significantly since the end of the Cold War.