South Korea’s HD Hyundai says it wants in on American shipbuilding. That’s right: the world’s biggest shipbuilder, already running circles around us in commercial yards, is sniffing at buying a U.S. yard to feed President Trump’s new “revival” plan for American industry.
Woo-maan Jeong, a Hyundai executive, didn’t mince words: America can’t build enough of its own warships, so Washington’s going to have to let allies step in. Translation: the arsenal of democracy is now renting space from its old tenants.
The stats should make your blood boil. In 1945, U.S. yards led the planet. By 2024, our share of the world market was a pitiful 0.04%. Meanwhile, South Korea and China crank out 83% of commercial ships. Korea builds an Aegis destroyer in 18 months; we take three years and change. If this were football, we wouldn’t even make the playoffs.
Congress keeps the Jones Act and Byrnes-Tollefson Amendment locked up like sacred scripture—foreign firms can’t build naval ships here. But the same lawmakers quietly float amendments to let Hyundai and Hanwha set up shop, because they know the truth: we can’t fill our own orders.
And don’t think it’ll be smooth. U.S. shipyards can’t hold workers longer than a year. Immigration laws trip up Korean trainers. We’re out of welders, pipefitters, and electricians, because we let those trades wither while Silicon Valley was minting its billionaires.
Now Korea pledges $150 billion into U.S. shipbuilding, part of a wider $350 billion “investment package” to keep tariffs low. Sounds like a lifeline. Or a buyout.
Let’s call this what it is: America, once the shipyard of the world, is now subcontracting its defense backbone to foreign yards because Wall Street and Washington let the industrial base rot. Trump calls it “revival.” It looks a lot more like surrender.