US President Donald Trump is pushing a plan that would allow foreign shipbuilders investing in the US shipbuilding industry to build up to two of the initial batch of warships and support vessels to be introduced by the US military at their home-country shipyards. Additional vessels after that must be built at US shipyards expanded through the foreign companies' investment. The measure is expected to affect the ‘MASGA (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again)’ shipbuilding cooperation that Korea and the US are pursuing.
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Foreign shipbuilders wishing to take part must build a new shipyard in the US or secure ownership or a majority stake in an existing US shipyard, while also hiring and training American workers. They must also transfer the shipbuilding technology and techniques held by their home-country shipyards to the US shipyard and build a supply chain for construction and maintenance within the US. If these conditions are met, up to two initial vessels may be built at the foreign company's home-country shipyard. Vessels after that must be built at shipyards in the US.
This applies a national security exception to US law, which in principle prohibits overseas construction of vessels for the US military. President Trump delegated to the Secretary of Defense the authority to judge whether each individual construction contract meets the national security exception requirements.
After last year's summit, Korea and the US set the scale of Korea's investment in the US shipbuilding sector at 150 billion dollars and agreed to explore, alongside investment in US shipyards, workforce training, shipyard modernization and supply chain strengthening, the possibility of building US vessels in Korea. In particular, as this memorandum presents a way of allowing foreign shipbuilders that invest in US shipyards and train American workers to build up to two initial vessels abroad, it is significant in that a concrete institutional path has been laid out for applying the ‘building US vessels in Korea’ that the two countries have been discussing to actual procurement of US military warships and support vessels. However, this does not mean that construction volume has been immediately allocated to Korean shipbuilders; it must still go through the US Department of Defense's detailed procurement plans and individual contractor selection procedures.
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Transfer shipbuilding technology and techniques to US shipyards? yo
▶ Original source: https://news.nate.com/view/20260814n04077?mid=n0104
