- 9 minutes ago
China is the world's top shipbuilder, and as it rapidly continues to expand its navy, the Trump administration is making American shipbuilding a national priority. We went inside a US naval shipyard to see how these vessels are built and why expanding America's fleet may be harder than it sounds.
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00:01Just this section of a U.S. Navy ship has been under construction for half a year.
00:07That's crazy because it's like, it's a big part, but it's still just a small part of a ship.
00:13From first plate cut to when we actually launched the ship is usually about two years.
00:19So this ship is nowhere near finished.
00:22But this U.S. shipyard is moving as fast as it can.
00:26Because right now, America is racing to catch up with China, the world's top shipbuilder.
00:34China produces about 1,700 commercial ships a year.
00:38The U.S. builds just five at best.
00:42I don't think I will ever, ever touch the bottom of a ship. This is crazy.
00:47Today, America is so far behind that Washington is calling it a threat to national security.
00:53And it's turning to South Korea, the second largest shipbuilder, for help making ships again.
01:00But we're going to make them very fast, very soon.
01:03We went to one of the U.S.'s last major shipyards to understand why American ships take so long and
01:11cost so much to build.
01:13And to ask the question at the center of the global ship race.
01:18How long do you think it's going to take for us to catch up to China?
01:33In 2016, the U.S. Navy asked a simple question.
01:37How many battle force ships would America need if a war broke out with its rivals, including China?
01:43Its answer? 355.
01:46Because back then, China had about 255.
01:50But today, it's estimated to have more than 400.
01:54America still hasn't reached the goal it set 10 years ago.
01:59It's about 60 ships short of that.
02:01And the goal is even higher today.
02:04Now, the Navy is betting on at least 7 shipyards to help it close that gap fast.
02:11Austell USA is one of them.
02:13To film here, we had to agree to blur out anything that could be top secret and compromise national security.
02:20This shipyard builds all kinds of vessels, including search and rescue ships for the U.S. Coast Guard.
02:26And this Expeditionary Fast Transport, or EPF, for the Navy.
02:32To build one, Austell USA first needed special government clearance.
02:37Because Navy designs are classified.
02:39Which is why where we're about to go is really rare.
02:43We're going to go inside.
02:45Not to be rude, but, I mean, this ship isn't really a beauty.
02:49It's not.
02:50It's not.
02:50It's not a beauty.
02:51This is, we've made some pretty ships.
02:54This is the pickup truck that the Navy needs, right?
02:58It's a work vessel.
03:00It's not a warship.
03:01It doesn't have a lot of weapons.
03:02But even without all the time spent arming this ship, building this Navy pickup still takes years.
03:10Ever since you cut the first piece of aluminum for this ship, how long has it been since then?
03:17We're four months from delivery, so it's been about 32 months, 33 months.
03:23In that span of time, America could once build about 3,000 ships.
03:30This is what U.S. shipyards looked like the last time America was responding to a ship shortage.
03:37No sooner is one launched than they swing a new keel into place for another.
03:42Not a minute is wasted.
03:44During World War II, German submarines were sinking merchant vessels that carried the food, weapons, and fuel allied forces needed
03:52to keep fighting.
03:53The present rate of Nazi sinkings of merchant ships, it is more than twice the combined British and American output
04:02of merchant ships today.
04:05So in 1941, President Roosevelt called for an emergency program.
04:10We must build more cargo ships and still more cargo ships.
04:14The government poured about $900 million, the equivalent of $20 billion today, into expanding shipyards and mobilizing factories to support
04:26shipbuilding.
04:27Within just three years of Roosevelt's announcement, the U.S. went from building about 50 ships annually to more than
04:351,900.
04:38Sea power. From Maine to California, 27 ships launched in one day.
04:43But back then, the U.S. had a big advantage.
04:47A huge industrial workforce already skilled in building things.
04:52Today, the Navy estimates America is short about a quarter of a million people, with the skills to build the
04:59ships it will need in the next decade.
05:03If the goal is to build more ships...
05:06Well, we have to have a good workforce. That's first and foremost.
05:09So our electricians, our pipe bitters, welders, those are high-demand jobs.
05:14That's Shelley Thigpen. She's overseeing the build they're starting on today.
05:19A Coast Guard cutter due in three years.
05:22But to hit that deadline, the shipyard needs 365 people.
05:27Finding enough people is one of the biggest ongoing challenges for the business.
05:32Austell USA can't just hire anyone who wants this job.
05:36For security reasons, the government only lets it hire U.S. green card holders and citizens.
05:43I mean, U.S. citizens can be spies too, right?
05:47We follow the requirements of our contracts to make sure that we're doing the necessary background checks.
05:52Then, Austell USA has to spend four years training them as part of its apprenticeship program.
05:59This has to be very precise, but this is basically spot-on.
06:04From the design to this cutting table, everything is right on them.
06:10What if it was like one millimeter off?
06:13It could be a big problem.
06:14Going down the line, it could throw bulkheads off.
06:18It could throw frames off.
06:19The rework that would cause would be many, many hours.
06:23That's why every job here takes skill and precision.
06:28I mean, if I'm off by any amount, it might leave too big of a gap to that that it's
06:33going on to.
06:34To train just 200 apprentices, Austell USA has to spend over $3 million.
06:42And once you've invested that much, the next big challenge becomes getting them to stay in the business.
06:49And you understand why that's hard when you see workers layering up in 100-degree Alabama heat.
06:56Are you putting that sweater on?
06:59Yes.
07:00It's so hot.
07:01Why?
07:03Keep the flapping jumping up.
07:05It's right enough.
07:06It's a hot job.
07:07It's a hot job most of the time.
07:08We are lucky to have everything undercover to where we're not in the sun.
07:12So that's better.
07:15At many American shipyards, most of this work happens outside, which makes hot days even hotter.
07:22But when it rains, sometimes work stops.
07:26Employees get paid hourly, so when the weather is bad, they're likely looking at a smaller paycheck.
07:32That's another reason there's so much turnover in this industry.
07:36Why not salary, people?
07:38An hourly worker, they can get paid overtime.
07:41It's just how it's set up, really.
07:43The Navy says worker attrition has been a major driver of delays on its new Constellation-class frigate,
07:50which was being built at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin.
07:55The first ship ran three years late.
07:58And the Navy ultimately canceled the whole class.
08:01Every time you lose somebody, you've got to replace their experience, you've got to find a new person,
08:07you've got to train them up to it, and so you lose a lot of time every time.
08:10That's the biggest challenge to scale.
08:15America began losing its shipbuilding workforce after World War II.
08:19The building boom left it with more ships than it needed.
08:22So Washington stopped pouring as much money into the industry.
08:28And so an era ends.
08:31The Brooklyn Navy Yard, cradle and haven for U.S. warships, becomes 217 acres of silence.
08:40At the same time, South Korea began pouring big money into shipbuilding
08:45to help counter threats from the North.
08:48Labor there was cheaper than in America.
08:51And that also attracted orders for commercial ships from companies around the world.
08:56As money poured in, shipyards could reinvest to modernize and expand.
09:02Until 1981, the U.S. government helped offset some of the higher costs of building ships in America.
09:09But when the Reagan administration ended that support,
09:14American-built ships got even more expensive.
09:17The Jones Act, enacted decades before, helped protect a small domestic market.
09:22It mandated that ships moving cargo between U.S. ports be made domestically.
09:27But that guaranteed business also insulated American yards from global competition,
09:33pushing prices even higher.
09:36Big commercial orders stopped coming altogether.
09:39So, many shipyards shuttered.
09:42By 2000, South Korea had become the world's top shipbuilder,
09:47winning more than 35% of global vessel orders by tonnage.
09:52Commercial ships aren't naval ships,
09:54but they keep a huge workforce ready when the Navy needs it.
09:58Meanwhile, the U.S. today accounts for just 0.03% of the world's commercial shipbuilding.
10:04And without a workforce ready to step in, if the Navy says it needs a ship faster, yards need to
10:12make a tough call.
10:15We have to investigate, you know, is that possible?
10:17If it is possible, what will that take?
10:20What other programs will we, you know, have to maybe push out or pull people from?
10:25You're trying to grow naval capability directly as opposed to just, you know,
10:29as part of that is converting commercial capacity.
10:32And so that does make that growth harder.
10:35But experts say that right now, the U.S. can't afford to grow slowly.
10:40Because America's naval fleet is being stretched thin.
10:44Since the conflict with Iran started, the U.S. has moved some of its ships from the Pacific to the
10:50Middle East.
10:51Ships that were there to help deter China and respond fast if a crisis broke out, like an invasion of
10:58Taiwan.
11:00That's the trade-off when you don't have enough ships.
11:03Send them to cover one conflict and you have fewer to cover another.
11:07So building ships quickly matters more than ever.
11:11But when shipyards build exclusively for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, delays can easily snowball.
11:17There's a lot of changes that happen throughout the life of the ship.
11:21A lot of the design we start with, you know, is constantly being upgraded and updated.
11:26Even after work is in full swing, the Navy sometimes changes its mind on a design mid-built.
11:33That's especially common on the first ship in a class, which the industry calls a lead ship.
11:39And that's also where a lot of the kinks get worked out.
11:42You know, the first in class comes with a series of challenges as you build the ship for the first
11:46time
11:46and activate it and test it.
11:48But once you're this far along, a single change can cost shipyards months and add tens of millions of dollars
11:57in labor alone.
11:58And so the investment and the challenges required to work through, you know, a lead ship are very expensive and
12:06time-consuming.
12:07And this isn't a hurdle naval shipyards face just once in a while.
12:12In the shipbuilding industry, if you think about it and compare it to airplanes, you might develop, you know, a
12:19couple of prototypes of an airplane and then you might go off and build 500 of that airplane.
12:23On the shipbuilding side, you build a class of 10 ships.
12:26That means for every 10 ships you build, you're facing a new lead ship with more potential delays and more
12:34expenses.
12:35When that's happening every few builds, your shipyard can constantly be operating years behind schedule.
12:42And if you're short on labor, you can't just throw more people at the problem.
12:47China can.
12:51The country entered the global ship race in 2000.
12:55At the time, China was importing huge amounts of raw material and paying foreign companies to ship them in.
13:03That's where Beijing saw an opportunity.
13:06Build those ships at home.
13:08It poured big money into Chinese shipyards and steered its orders there.
13:13In just 10 years, China went from receiving just 7% of the world's major ship orders and tonnage to
13:21about 45%, outpacing South Korea.
13:25Today, it's by far the biggest shipbuilder on Earth, producing more than 53% of the world's ship tonnage.
13:33China builds some of its naval ships in the same yards as commercial ones.
13:37So it can more easily convert capacity to handle big orders from its navy.
13:43And that's one reason the country can build some naval ships faster than America.
13:49Over the next four years, the U.S. expects to gain just two battle force ships, reaching a grand total
13:57of 293.
13:59If we compare that to China, which is projected to have 435, does that make you nervous?
14:19We reached out to the U.S. Navy to see what it has to say about this disparity.
14:24And the chief of naval operations had nothing to add.
14:29So in 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order to rebuild America's maritime industry.
14:37And asked South Korea for help.
14:40Today, the country is the world's second largest shipbuilder.
14:43With high-tech shipyards that rival China's,
14:46South Korea uses robots for welding and digital systems to track huge ship sections in real-time.
14:54As part of a trade deal with the Trump administration,
14:57South Korea pledged to invest $150 billion into helping modernize U.S. shipyards.
15:04One of the country's largest shipbuilders, Hanwha Ocean,
15:08has even bought an American shipyard and is training local workers on how to use new tools.
15:14If shipbuilding is so important to American national security,
15:21how is it possible that this is something we're looking to foreign countries to teach us?
15:29A lot of the lessons in general about shipbuilding have come from the number and the size of ships
15:33that some of these foreign countries have built.
15:35And so they have some very good production-related lessons for us.
15:40Austell USA is one of America's newest and most modern shipyards.
15:44Just 27 years old.
15:46So parts of this facility were built around automation early on.
15:51So I'm not seeing, in this facility right now, I'm not seeing a ton of people.
15:57That's correct.
15:58So the automated welding processes don't require a large team.
16:03So this here is the weld that that machine made.
16:06It can put multiple plates together, and once they become one large plate, we call it a blanket, like a
16:13big blanket plate.
16:14What part of the ship will this be?
16:16This looks like it's going to be a deck.
16:19But many U.S. shipyards are still either completely shut down, or continue to rely heavily on the same equipment
16:28they used half a century ago.
16:30Even with help from South Korea, a recent government analysis found that upgrading four public yards could cost over $200
16:39billion and take more than 50 years.
16:42So if South Korea is already so good at building fast, why haven't we let it build our Navy ships?
16:51U.S. law largely prohibits military vessels from being built outside the country.
16:56We have a lot of things that are proprietary to naval vessels and coast-barred vessels.
17:02Like this part of the process, where the walls of the ship start coming together.
17:07We can't film behind these walls, and that gives you a sense of just how critical what happens here is
17:13to the U.S.'s national defense.
17:16The way these sections are built can help determine how well the ship holds up in a fight.
17:21We can't just give that information to other countries to go and build.
17:24There are certain things that we can't farm out, we can't take away from our country, shipbuilding being one of
17:30those.
17:30But in an emergency, the president can grant an exception.
17:35And in August 2026, the Trump administration did.
17:40America can now outsource two initial ships in up to three naval classes to foreign shipyards.
17:46Under the condition that those companies then invest in a U.S. yard, bring in their tech, train American workers
17:55to build the next ships, and develop a domestic supply chain.
18:00Because that's the other thing America is missing today.
18:08There are millions of parts in a ship, and they have to get here from all over the world.
18:13We have hundreds of suppliers really across the world that supply everything from nuts and bolts to steel to equipment.
18:23Logistically, it makes it a little easier to just truck something over if we're getting it locally.
18:28We have parts that are coming from other parts of the world.
18:31We have to, you know, coordinate that time it takes in transit to get here from overseas.
18:39It's a lot of moving pieces, a lot of parts that have to come together at just the right time.
18:44You realize how many parts Shelly is talking about when you see these giant monchols start coming together.
18:51So I'm standing underneath about 1,800 tons of metal right now.
18:59We do have things that sometimes don't make it, but we usually do other work.
19:03Will it delay the delivery of the ship?
19:06There are some very critical pieces and equipment sometimes that could delay a milestone.
19:13China makes up to 60% of its key ship systems and equipment at home, which can mean less time
19:20waiting for parts and less money shipping them in.
19:24But if we were to have to get one thing really quickly, that might cost a lot.
19:28We had to bring it in.
19:30But bringing it in fast can come with another risk.
19:35The longer the supply chains, the more apt an opportunity for exploitation.
19:40There's no question about it.
19:41We don't have total control over those supply chains overseas.
19:44A Senate investigation found about 1,800 suspected counterfeit parts in the U.S. military supply chain.
19:51Many traced back to China.
19:54The chance for espionage, nation-state interference, really opens up significant opportunities for malfeasance and for access by the adversary.
20:04So, in July 2026, the Trump administration mandated that defense contractors vet every supplier and trace every critical part before
20:14it goes onto a Navy ship.
20:17Austell USA says it already does that and tries to buy as much as it can domestically.
20:23But that may not be the case at every yard.
20:26If we're trying, right, to build ships faster, what do you think that will do to our rate of output?
20:36It's a great question.
20:37Quite frankly, we have to find a way.
20:39That cost is, frankly, defeat.
20:41But however long it takes to vet all of this, a ship can't sit unfinished forever.
20:49So how long would you estimate that's been sitting out there for?
20:52Probably a couple of weeks.
20:54You get a lot of rain and humidity here.
20:56All steel has to be coated with a tank coating.
20:59Every year, the Navy spends about $3 billion just priming and painting its fleet.
21:06Because a single ship can cost millions to coat.
21:10And that's when these ships' price tags start to make sense.
21:17So we're entering the bridge area.
21:20We got special access, but many of the systems they use here have to stay secret.
21:26There's no big steering wheel like you see in the World War II movies, nothing like that.
21:30This is how they drive the ship now.
21:31So you can see it's pretty automated.
21:35So you can sit at that spot and look at the monitors similar to these monitors
21:40and see everything going on with the ship.
21:43There's cameras, there's remote operating systems, all of that.
21:47So they can turn things on and off, speed the engines up, do whatever they need to.
21:51Wow, so you really have a great view from here.
21:53Yeah.
21:54All of this computer technology, how much does that cost?
22:00I can't tell you all of that, because a lot of this stuff is furnished by the government.
22:05But it would be double-digit millions.
22:10And that's just upstairs.
22:12Oh boy, this is steep.
22:14There's just one thing we were allowed to show on camera inside this room.
22:19This is a Rolls Royce, and it comes from Germany.
22:22And based on our research, it costs about $3 million.
22:27Several nice houses down here.
22:29There are several nice houses.
22:30Oh, wow.
22:31Yeah, and there's four of them, if you can believe that.
22:33And once you start adding it all up, this ship comes out to about $230 million,
22:40which, believe it or not, is on the cheaper side for a U.S. Navy ship.
22:44There's a lot of labor.
22:47All of the material is expensive.
22:51There's nothing cheap, especially when you're talking about application in a marine environment.
22:56By the time a U.S. yard is done assembling a ship and launches it into the water,
23:02it can cost four to five times as much to build it in the U.S. than it would in
23:07China or South Korea.
23:10But Austell USA says it tries its best to keep things cheap.
23:14We go and get the best value for the Navy, and we're obligated to do that under the contract, right?
23:20We're obligated to compete.
23:21Shipyards compete for government contracts on a couple big promises, like schedule and cost.
23:27If a project runs over, it can hurt the shipyard's chances of getting the next one.
23:33That sometimes creates pressure to keep estimates low, and in some cases, to hide when costs are rising.
23:41In 2024, Austell USA pleaded guilty to accounting fraud for allegedly underreporting costs on some of its Navy shipbuilding programs.
23:52What do you think that can ultimately do, perhaps, to the government's expectations of shipyards like this,
24:02and what it will cost them to deliver?
24:06I wasn't here during that time, and I'm not really in a position to comment.
24:11What I will say is, I think it's, you know, the better that we are about being, you know,
24:15providing credible shipbuilding estimates through the entire process, the better off the industry will be.
24:22Experts say that matters, because the U.S. literally cannot make more ships in America
24:28if it doesn't know where the costs are snowballing.
24:31The Navy has a finite shipbuilding budget.
24:35To buy 34 ships in 2027, the Navy asked Congress for $65.8 billion.
24:43But its 11 most recent lead ships alone came in at least $8 billion over budget.
24:50Roughly one-eighth of that entire request.
24:54Every dollar pulled into those overrun ships is money the Navy can't spend on the next hulls,
25:00or the workers and suppliers needed to build them faster.
25:05And while the U.S. tries to close that gap, China keeps building.
25:10What do you think the stakes are if we can't get those costs down soon?
25:17One of the important aspects of shipbuilding is continuing to make it as affordable as possible,
25:23and I think the more that we're able to do that, the better off we will be.
25:27But what if we don't?
25:28We'll figure it out.
25:29You think we'll figure it out?
25:30I'm confident that we will figure this out.
25:32But figuring it out starts with a massive choice.
25:35What ships should the U.S. prioritize next?
25:40In 2025, President Trump announced a new class of battleships,
25:45outfitted with hypersonic missiles and high-powered lasers.
25:49It'll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.
25:57The Navy wants to order the first one in 2028,
26:01and estimates it can build it in eight years.
26:03From your experience seeing what it takes to build ships, right,
26:09how realistic do you think that expectation is?
26:14We are standing by to help the government build whatever products they decide are most effective for them.
26:22Trump's full 15-ship program is expected to cost $275 billion,
26:29more than four years of the Navy's entire shipbuilding budget.
26:34The lead ship alone could cost $23 billion,
26:39about as much as a new Ford-class aircraft carrier.
26:43And the two types of ship may compete for more than just money.
26:47The Navy expects this shipyard in Virginia to assemble both in the same dock.
26:53It's already behind on three carriers.
26:55So, as America's fleet ages, the next question becomes,
27:00if you can't pump out ships fast enough,
27:03how do you repair the ones you already have?
27:06Especially when you're thousands of miles away from a shipyard.
27:10During naval exercises like this one,
27:13the Navy is testing a potential shortcut,
27:16making replacement parts at sea,
27:19which requires moving huge machines onto a ship.
27:23So, we put that machine on an aircraft carrier,
27:27and we noticed that each time a plane would land and hit the flight deck,
27:32it made just a tiny little thud,
27:35which when you have a laser that has to be operating at certain just microns of fineness,
27:41it will very quickly get it out of alignment.
27:43But if the Navy can get this right,
27:46it could ease a much bigger bottleneck.
27:49Over the past decade, destroyer repairs have run 10,000 days late,
27:54partly because of supply and worker shortages at U.S. shipyards.
28:00The goal is to relieve strain and augment the supply system
28:04so that you don't have folks waiting on, you know,
28:09a small component that you could manufacture yourself.
28:12Every little bracket that you can produce on the ship
28:15frees up a little bit of space.
28:17But for now, there's still more work to do
28:19before warships can become floating ship repair yards.
28:23I don't think that technology yet is to that kind of Star Trek replicator level
28:28where you can just push a button
28:30and then suddenly you're getting what you're asking for.
28:34So, one day in the future, we might be at that point.
28:37Until then, all eyes will remain on shipyards like this one.
28:45The Trump administration says that it's done the most out of any recent administration
28:50to revive shipbuilding in America.
28:52From your experience being in this industry, do you think that's accurate?
28:58It is certainly fair to say that over the last 30 years,
29:01I have not seen as much interest in expanding the shipbuilding capacity as I'm seeing today.
29:07In 2025, the administration signed into law $30 billion for new Navy and Coast Guard ships.
29:16And for 2027, it's asking Congress for another $65.8 billion.
29:23More than twice what President Biden requested in 2024.
29:27To put that in perspective, America's shipbuilding budget alone
29:31is about equal to the entire defense spending of nuclear powers like France.
29:37Yet, this historic naval expansion represents just over a 4.3% slice
29:43of President Trump's unprecedented $1.5 trillion total defense request for 2027.
29:50And spending all that money is still just the first step.
29:56How long do you think it's going to take for us to catch up to China's rate of output?
30:03I would say it's really a question of national priorities and national will.
30:08And so it'll just depend on what sort of requirements and investment we decide we want to put into it.
30:14In August 2026, Austell warned of major losses on several U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs.
30:21That same month, the Korean shipbuilder Hanwha put in a non-binding offer to buy Austell USA.
30:27What would you say to those who argue there's absolutely no way the U.S. can catch up?
30:35Priority and national will of the United States has always responded, you know, to any challenge that comes up.
30:41And if we decide that that's the challenge that we want to respond to,
30:45I'm confident that the shipbuilders in this country will respond to the challenge that we need to rise to.