Restoring shipbuilding infrastructure to the USA
The USA used to have an extensive infrastructure of shipbuilding facilities. We lost them to cheaper foreign competition. We are now realizing that an inability to build ships on a large scale is a major security issue.
The solution is simple — we just have to mandate that any ship offloading product to the USA be built in the USA.
The mandate would give the shipbuilding industry a few years to spin up before going into effect.
We can justify this on security grounds to deal with the inevitable complaints.
This will not be inflationary because the additional cost of the ship will be spread out over the life of the ship. Over time, the greater domestic competition will drive prices down as well.
The USA is a large important customer of imported products. Large important customers can set the terms of the transaction. We should not be shy about it.
China was not shy about it when they demanded that foreign manufacturers who wanted access to their market take on a domestic partner and share technology. We would only be playing by the accepted terms of the game.
It might take five to ten years to restore domestic shipbuilding capacity. This is how long the grace period should be.
The economic and security benefits would be immense and they would be achieved at zero cost, with the possible exception of incentives to jump start construction of shipbuilding infrastructure.
It is an all gain no pain policy.
