US Shipbuilding Push Rides on the NDAA: SHIPS Act Provisions, a $20 Billion Trust Fund and Korea's $150 Billion Pledge

The US builds less than 1% of the world’s new commercial ships, the White House says in its Maritime Action Plan, published in February 2026. Most of what the plan proposes to change that needs Congress, and the bill now carrying it is the stalled fiscal 2027 defence authorisation act.

On 9 October the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department asked senators to sign a letter, led by Senators Todd Young and Mark Kelly and Representatives Trent Kelly and John Garamendi, urging congressional leaders to keep the SHIPS for America Act’s provisions in the final NDAA. The deadline to sign is 16 October.

What the White House asked for

The plan answers an executive order of 9 April 2025, “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance.” It counts 66 US shipyards, of which eight build new ships and only eight can build vessels longer than 400 feet. It proposes federal money for dry docks and cranes, multiyear ship purchases to steady demand, more cadets at the Merchant Marine Academy and faster Coast Guard licensing for mariners.

Its biggest idea is a universal fee on foreign-built commercial ships calling at US ports, charged on the weight of imported cargo. The plan says a rate of 1 cent per kilogram would raise about $66 billion over ten years. The money would go into a Maritime Security Trust Fund for shipbuilding and US-flag fleet programmes. A second levy, a Land Port Maintenance Tax of 0.125% of the value of goods crossing land borders, would mirror the Harbor Maintenance Tax at seaports. Both need legislation. So does the trust fund.

The fiscal 2027 budget followed in April. It asked $2.6 billion for the Maritime Administration, including $400.5 million for the Maritime Security Program, which pays to keep up to 60 US-flag ships available for military sealift, $167.6 million for the Tanker Security Program and $105 million for small shipyard grants. It proposed $1.4 billion as a first deposit in the trust fund until fee revenue arrives.

What the House wrote into the NDAA

The House passed its NDAA, H.R. 8800, on 22 July by 216 to 212. Two maritime amendments went in. The first, from Representative Trent Kelly, chair of the Seapower subcommittee, is a rewritten SHIPS for America Act of about 100 sections. It creates a maritime security adviser in the White House and caps the trust fund at $20 billion without naming a source of money. It raises the share of government cargo that must travel on US-flag ships from 50% to 100%, sets up grants for US shipyards and suppliers with Buy America rules, and raises the liability cap for foreign shipowners under an 1851 law.

The second, from Representative Mike Ezell, chair of the Coast Guard subcommittee, takes up some of the 14 legislative proposals the White House sent with the plan. It widens MARAD’s Title XI ship loan guarantees to cover retrofits and creates the first requirement that a share of private inbound container and vehicle cargo move on US-flag ships. That share starts small and rises in phases, with US-content rules tightening to 51% by 2042.

The original Senate bill, S. 1541, was introduced in 2025 with cosponsors from both parties and referred to the Commerce Committee. The Senate’s NDAA, S. 4784, cleared Armed Services in June, but a vote to start debate failed on 14 July and there has been no floor action since. The usual route now is a House-Senate conference text in the lame duck, as covered in our post on the December 11 deadlines. Which maritime sections survive that negotiation is the open question.

Korea’s money

The plan also counts at least $150 billion in foreign investment pledged for US shipbuilding. Nearly all of it is South Korea’s, under the shipbuilding part of its $350 billion investment deal with Washington in July 2025. Seoul calls it MASGA, Make American Shipbuilding Great Again.

On 8 May the Commerce Department and Korea’s trade ministry signed a memorandum setting up the Korea-U.S. Shipbuilding Partnership Initiative. Its centre in Washington opened in July in the presence of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and 15 memoranda on supply chains, training and research were signed there. Korea’s trade ministry is funding about $80 million of joint research over five years. Korean reporting notes that the financing behind the $150 billion is still largely undisclosed.

The most concrete project is in Philadelphia. Hanwha bought Philly Shipyard for $100 million in December 2024 and in August 2025 announced a $5 billion plan to raise output from fewer than two ships a year to as many as 20. Hanwha says it has more than doubled the yard’s workforce. Beijing sanctioned the yard and four other Hanwha units in October 2025, in retaliation for USTR’s port fees, then suspended the measures for a year under the trade truce. The fees themselves are covered in our post on the USTR deadline.

The test

Washington has a plan, a budget request, a House text and a foreign partner with money. It doesn’t have a law. The fee that would pay for most of it hasn’t been drafted as a bill, and the trust fund the House would create has a cap but no revenue. If the maritime sections drop out in conference, the plan goes back to what agencies can do alone: grants, loan guarantees and port fees set by notice.