You can write all the executive orders you want. You can form task forces, launch action plans, and declare a new era of American shipbuilding. But before we start pouring steel and painting hulls red, white, and blue—we’ve got to ask a basic question:
Where the hell are we going to build all these ships?
This isn’t theoretical for me. When I was a kid, I lived just a few miles from the San Diego shipyards. Across the street stood these massive buildings—loud, proud, and alive—where men and women went to school to learn how to weld steel and build the very ships that kept this country moving and safe.
Those buildings are gone now. The shipyard? Smaller. Quieter. Some of it lost to time. Some paved over for something sleeker, shinier, and less essential. That corner of San Diego once smelled like hard work. Now it smells like brunch.
And that’s the problem with this new push to restore “maritime dominance.” The Trump administration’s executive order says all the right things—rebuild the industrial base, train the workforce, and invest in American shipyards. But it skips over one crucial step:
Where are we going to do this?
The working waterfronts that once launched fleets have been repurposed, rezoned, and real-estated into oblivion. Cities that used to echo with steel strikes and foghorns now echo with rooftop bars and overpriced condos called “The Anchorage.” You can’t launch a destroyer from a dog park, and you sure as hell can’t lay a keel in a luxury tower’s valet lane.
And if, by some miracle, you could carve out space, you’d still need the people. Shipbuilders aren’t made overnight. You need welders, pipefitters, naval architects—and they need schools, apprenticeships, and good pay. Those massive training centers I remember as a boy? Gone. And we haven’t built new ones because, for decades, we told the next generation to get into tech, not trades.
Meanwhile, China didn’t forget. They kept building. They trained their workforce, modernized their shipyards, and flooded the globe with steel hulls. Today, they own nearly half of the global commercial shipbuilding market. We own just over one-tenth of one percent. You can’t even see us on the chart without a magnifying glass and a prayer.
We talk about reshoring, revitalizing, restoring—but that’s just R-words on a press release until we’re ready to do the hard part: reclaim land, rebuild schools, reinvest in people, and maybe, just maybe, tell the real estate developers they’ve had enough waterfront for now.
You want a shipyard revival? Then make some space—for steel, for sparks, for students, for sweat. Until then, we’re not restoring anything.
We’re just remembering what we gave away.