By Blaine Worthington
The USA has a delivery drawback and all people is aware of it. From combatant instructions to congress and maritime safety shops to the White Home, everyone seems to be speaking about America’s lack of maritime capability.1 America, it appears, is waking as much as its maritime drawback and is able to roll up its sleeves and begin fixing it in the one method it is aware of how—principally alone. Whereas there have been some nods to bilateral cooperation in shipbuilding, the US has not made a concerted effort towards a sturdy, multilateral counter-China maritime technique. That should change. A coordinated, multinational method is required to counter Chinese language delivery dominance. The US and its allies ought to kind a Multilateral Maritime Alliance to safe maritime commerce and create crucial sealift capability to maintain expeditionary fight operations.
The crux of the issue is that the US can not compete with Chinese language delivery or shipbuilding. The USA flagged service provider fleet at present sits at 185 ships.2 China (together with Hong Kong) has a fleet of seven,838.3 In 2023, the US constructed 0.1% of the world’s ships. In the identical yr, China constructed 50.7%.4 In 2024, 2.16% of the worldwide service provider fleet was owned by US firms. China owned 19%.5 The size of China’s delivery and shipbuilding benefit provides it great financial leverage over the US throughout peacetime. On the similar time, this lack of home delivery means the US doesn’t have a service provider marine sturdy sufficient to assist sustained expeditionary fight within the occasion battle with China.6 It’s comprehensible that the US needs to rebuild its maritime sector. It should, and it should do it shortly.
The USA isn’t alone on this scenario, nonetheless. Its shut pal and ally Australia suffers from an identical ailing. As Canberra-based maritime skilled Richard Dunley has famous, “99 per cent of Australia’s commerce strikes by sea, supporting 45 per cent of the nation’s nationwide earnings. And just about all of this travels in overseas flagged and overseas owned vessels. In 2021, 6,170 particular person overseas flagged vessels referred to as at Australian ports. Against this, there are solely 4 Australian flagged vessels on worldwide commerce and these are LNG carriers, exporting Australian hydrocarbons to prospects in north-east Asia.”7
This example isn’t misplaced on the Australian authorities both. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Celebration made the event of a “Strategic Fleet” of privately owned and Australia-flagged service provider vessels a plank of the celebration platform through the 2022 election.8 In 2023, the Albanese authorities launched a report detailing the size of the issue and proposing many options much like these now on provide in the US, together with authorities subsidies, cargo choice measures, and maritime workforce growth efforts—largely measures geared toward bolstering home capability.
These efforts, like their American counterparts, will take a few years, if not many years, to take impact, nonetheless. There isn’t a swap to flip that can abruptly trigger shipyards to spring up, filled with skilled and certified staff, with wholesome, constant, dependable demand for ships operated by American or Australian crew whereas relying solely on home options. Because the Davidson Window – the most certainly window during which China would possibly try to take navy motion in opposition to Taiwan – closes and the clock ticks right down to 2027, there merely isn’t sufficient time to attend for the home business to return on-line.9
If a home ramp-up can not present an instantaneous resolution, the plain reply is to look overseas. In the US, this effort has targeted on the shipbuilding facet of the coin. In current testimony, Congressional Analysis Service analyst Ronald O’Rourke typified this attitude by highlighting US allies in Japan and South Korea as apparent companions to handle US shipbuilding wants.10 Australian officers appeared to have reached an identical conclusion in strongly contemplating the Japanese Mogami-class frigates of their upcoming procurement.11 These options, nonetheless, depart two issues remaining. First, all Japanese and South Korean shipyards are inside China’s Weapons Engagement Zone (WEZ). It is a concern not only for the US and Australia, but in addition for Japan and Korea, who would wish entry to shipyards with some standoff from China within the occasion of battle. Second, even when shipbuilding partnerships might be achieved within the medium time period, the US and Australia will nonetheless lack enough sealift capability to compete with China within the speedy time period.12
To unravel these issues, the US and Australia ought to have interaction with their regional companions in South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines—who’ve been partnering with the Koreans to develop their very own shipbuilding prowess—to create a counter-China maritime bloc: the Multilateral Maritime Alliance (MMA). The MMA would obtain the next aims:
1. Set up financial incentives to advertise sea commerce by way of vessels owned or flagged throughout the MMA, defending market entry for home shippers and breaking Chinese language financial leverage over member states.
2. Formalize cooperation amongst MMA members to develop shipbuilding and delivery capability in Australia and the US, establishing sturdy and redundant allied maritime capability exterior the WEZ.
To realize the primary goal, the MMA ought to negotiate collective cargo preferences, port privileges, and commerce incentives to instantly shift demand away from Chinese language carriers. Many international locations, the US included, keep cargo choice insurance policies, that are designed to make sure demand for domestically flagged delivery. Beneath the MMA, related choice insurance policies could be shared amongst MMA international locations. Collective preferences may embody requiring {that a} share of all imports or exports be carried on MMA delivery, offering front-of-the-line privileges for MMA ships in ports of member states, and the blanket discount or elimination of import tariffs on all items shipped by way of MMA delivery. If obligatory, the MMA may even resort to establishing delivery quotas to be shared by taking part international locations to make sure all members have a chance to develop and maintain their home industries. By coordinating cargo preferences and different incentives, the MMA instantly counters China’s maritime dominance—dominance obtained by many years of subsidies, artificially low freight charges, and unfair labor practices.13 Breaking China’s grip on maritime commerce is a obligatory situation for future home investments in delivery and shipbuilding to be globally aggressive.
For the second goal, the MMA can create formal dialogue between international locations to permit for the strategic planning and coordination of shipbuilding and restore capability growth. Whereas many of those discussions are already occurring on a bilateral foundation, the MMA would be certain that these present actions are undertaken thoughtfully, don’t unwittingly compete in opposition to one another, or in any other case compromise the strategic integrity of this shipbuilding or restore capability. The MMA would successfully function an industrial alliance, much like these discovered within the European Union. These alliances carry collectively academia, policymakers, and business to coordinate coverage and funding to realize strategic ends by discovering alternatives for collaboration in any respect ranges of the worth chain.14 This might construct on cooperative efforts such because the manufacturing of Virginia-class submarines beneath AUKUS or the potential Mogami-class procurement venture between Australia and Japan. MMA collaboration may generate alternatives to collectively design, procure, and construct future ships in ways in which permit every member state to strategically contribute to the availability chain. Moreover, the MMA may permit for the event of formal technical and workforce trade applications that will allow US and Australian staff and administration to work alongside their Korean and Japanese counterparts to develop experience in present greatest practices and produce these expertise again to their residence international locations. It could additionally permit for Korean, Japanese, and Philippine staff with shipbuilding expertise and experience to journey to the US or Australia to seed their nascent workforces and supply speedy entry to the expert labor essential to ramp up shipbuilding and restore capability past the WEZ.
These options usually are not meant as a substitute for efforts at present underway in the US or Australia. These efforts to develop their respective home maritime sectors should proceed. Nevertheless, purely home efforts to rebuild the business will take time that neither nation can afford, and bilateral efforts fail to successfully handle the size of Chinese language anti-competitive practices and the strategic vulnerability created by additional concentrating capability contained in the WEZ. The MMA, nonetheless, will set circumstances to permit these home investments to be aggressive in the long run by breaking the Chinese language stranglehold on the delivery business within the brief time period. It additionally formalizes strategic cooperation amongst all events to make sure that collective dangers are mitigated with collective options.
Lastly, this civil maritime coordination will lay the inspiration for additional cooperation between member states within the occasion of battle with China, when the demand for sealift will probably be acute, and all events may have a job to play in assembly that want. The time for unilateral and bilateral motion has handed. The USA, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines ought to kind the Multilateral Maritime Alliance now and break the Chinese language stranglehold on maritime industries—earlier than it’s too late.
Blaine Worthington is a graduate scholar on the UC San Diego Faculty of World Coverage and Technique and an Affiliate with Booz Allen Hamilton. He’s a graduate of the US Naval Academy and served as Logistics Officer in the US Marine Corps and continues to function a member of the Marine Corps’ Unbiased Prepared Reserve. Opinions expressed are his personal and don’t signify the positions of any establishment, company, or authorities.
References
1 Mallory Shelbourne, “PACFLEET CO Warns a Weak Maritime Sector Threat in Battle with China,” USNI Information (weblog), February 1, 2024, “Sen. Kelly, Sen. Younger, Rep. Garamendi, Rep. Kelly Introduce SHIPS for America Act to Revitalize US Shipbuilding and Business Maritime Industries,” Senator Mark Kelly (weblog), December 19, 2024, Cmdr. Sonha Gomez, USCG, “Rebuild the Service provider Marine,” Proceedings 150, no. 10 (October 2024), Cmdr. Ander S. Heiles, USN, “Rebuild Business Maritime Would possibly to Restore U.S. Sea Energy,” Heart for Worldwide Maritime Safety, January 31, 2025, Mallory Shelbourne, “Trump’s ‘Make Shipbuilding Nice Once more’ Order Requires Wholesale Overhaul of U.S. Maritime Trade,” USNI Information (weblog), March 5, 2025,
2 “Quantity and Dimension of the U.S. Flag Service provider Fleet and Its Share of the World Fleet,” Bureau of Transportation Statistics, accessed February 25, 2025,
3 “Service provider Fleet by Flag of Registration and by Kind of Ship, Annual” (UN Commerce & Improvement, June 5, 2024),
4 “Ships Constructed by Nation of Constructing, Annual” (UN Commerce & Improvement, June 5, 2024),
5 “Service provider Fleet by Nation of Useful Possession” (UN Commerce & Improvement, June 5, 2024),
6 Shelbourne, “Maritime Sector Threat.”
7 Richard Dunley, “Australia Must Useful resource a Service provider Fleet,” The Interpreter, November 14, 2023,
8 “Labor Will Create a Strategic Fleet to Shield Our Nationwide Safety and Financial Sovereignty,” Anthony Albanese, PM, January 3, 2022,
9 “CNO Remarks at America’s Future Fleet: Reinvigorating the Maritime Industrial Base,” United States Navy, accessed March 12, 2025,
10 Chris Panella, “Naval Affairs Specialist Says Pacific Allies Would possibly Simply Have Solutions to US Shipbuilding Issues,” Enterprise Insider, accessed March 13, 2025,
11 Nishank Motwani, “Strategic and Industrial Elements Favour Japan for Australia’s Frigate Mission,” The Strategist (weblog), February 27, 2025,
12 Shelbourne, “Maritime Sector Threat.”
13 “Report on China’s Focusing on of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sectors for Dominance,” Part 301 Investigation (Washington, D.C.: Workplace of the U.S. Commerce Consultant, January 16, 2025),
14 “Industrial Alliances,” European Fee, accessed March 2, 2025,
Featured Picture: BATH , Maine (Dec. 14, 2012) The 1,000-ton deckhouse of the destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) is craned towards the deck of the ship to be built-in with the ship’s hull at Normal Dynamics Bathtub Iron Works. (U.S. Navy picture)
