Late Friday, the administration unveiled its Maritime Action Plan (MAP), part of President Trump’s plan to restore the United States maritime dominance, and a follow up to the April 9th Executive Order14269 “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance”. Initially proposed under a bi-partisan effort as the Ships for America Act, the latest iteration has the Trump Administration signature all over it, with an expanded scope that touches on several key themes which the administration has deemed critical to U.S. economic security and national defense.
The thirty-six-page document stayed the course on key themes such as restoring U.S. shipbuilding capacity, educating the workforce, protecting the maritime industrial base, and an expanded national security component, which includes Arctic waterways.
When Quincannon Associates published our initial article “Restoring American Shipping Relevance” back in September, we acknowledged the why and posed the imperative question, how? The latest plan dives deeper into the current systems with the focus of incentivizing investment in U.S. yard and infrastructure projects, modernizing government procurement processes, and streamlining regulations to accelerate shipbuilding and reduce costs.
Like many of the Trump initiatives, the MAP relies heavily on public-private partnerships at the center of which is leveraging international and industry partnerships, which references the ~$150 billion of direct investment towards the U.S. shipbuilding industry the administration secured in 2025 from the likes of CMA CGM and Hanwha. At this stage, these commitments are mainly just pledges, however the current administration seems to be campaigning hard to put this money to work right away.
Initially, this all started under the Biden Administration as the “Investigation of China’s Targeting of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sectors for Dominance”, and within a few months manifested into a tonnage tax on Chinese controlled shipping interests looking to do business with the U.S. The current plan appears to move away from China specifically and instead pivots to a Universal Fee on Foreign-Built vessels from any nation. The proposal calls for an import fee of USD 0.01 – 0.25 per kilogram, assessed on the imported cargo. At the smaller end of this range, the charges are negligible, but at the higher end, would pose a significant import duty, even by European Union standards. The directive even goes one step further to propose a similar, albeit smaller levy, on imported goods coming by land, to shore up the backdoor and steer more commerce towards the maritime sector.
The document does address USTR Section 301 (page 19), and the one year pause with China set to expire on the 9th of November2026, however, the administration gave no signal that Section 301 would be reactivated, once the initial deadline expires. To the contrary, it stated that the U.S. will consult with China on shipbuilding capacity issues, and double down on cooperation with the Republic of Korea and Japan on revitalizing U.S. shipbuilding.
This statement, coupled with the propose “Universal Fee on Foreign-Built Vessels from any notion entering U.S. ports”, suggests that targeted fees on Chinese controlled ships may not resume, although the administration is anything but predictable.
We know why, and we are starting to see how, but when?
The latest plan goes to great lengths to establish the roadmap, and the administration can be commended for taking a wholistic view on the challenges ahead. Taking down the archaic government systems, streamlining processes, and creating financial incentives, while developing a structure that will allows the U.S. to compete on an international level are the only way the U.S. can gradually catch up to their international trading partners.
Given the scale of the agenda, the big question now is when will there be tangible results from this monumental undertaking?
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By Patrick Quincannon
President and CEO
Quincannon Associates