The Claim

Directed the creation of a Maritime Action Plan to Make American Shipbuilding Great Again and ensure American maritime dominance.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

That President Trump directed the creation of a “Maritime Action Plan” aimed at revitalizing American shipbuilding and securing “maritime dominance.” The verb is “directed” — he ordered someone to create a plan.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That the plan exists, that it is being implemented, and that it is producing or will produce results — that American shipbuilding is, in fact, being “made great again” and that “maritime dominance” is being achieved or restored. The placement under “reasserting American leadership on the world stage” implies this represents a consequential assertion of power, not merely the commissioning of a document.

What is conspicuously absent?

The staggering scale of the problem the plan purports to address. The United States builds 0.1% of the world’s commercial ships. American shipyards had exactly three large commercial vessels on order as of 2024 — out of 5,448 globally. China builds more commercial ships in a single quarter than the U.S. has built since World War II. The “plan” was not yet published when this claim was made on January 20, 2026 — the Maritime Action Plan was released February 13, 2026, 310 days after the executive order, overshooting its own 210-day deadline by roughly three months. As of the claim date, what existed was an executive order directing the creation of a plan, not the plan itself. And even the plan, once released, is a policy blueprint requiring congressional legislation to implement — not an operational program producing ships.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

President Trump signed Executive Order 14269, “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance,” on April 9, 2025. The order directs the National Security Advisor to develop a comprehensive Maritime Action Plan in coordination with the Secretaries of State, Defense, Commerce, Labor, Transportation, and Homeland Security. It establishes an Office of Maritime and Industrial Capacity at the National Security Council. It sets a 210-day deadline for the MAP’s completion. The order followed Trump’s March 4, 2025 address to Congress where he announced plans to “resurrect the American shipbuilding industry.” ¹

The Maritime Action Plan was published on February 13, 2026 — after the “365 wins” list was published. The 42-page document, developed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and OMB Director Russell Vought, was released 310 days after the executive order — roughly 100 days past the 210-day deadline. The White House’s January 20, 2026 “365 wins” claim therefore celebrated the direction to create a plan that had not yet been delivered. ²

The United States builds a negligible fraction of the world’s commercial ships. As of 2024, American shipyards had three large commercial vessels on order out of 5,448 globally — all Jones Act container ships at the Philly Shipyard. China had 3,419 vessels on order (62.8%). The U.S. accounts for 0.1% of global commercial shipbuilding market share. China’s largest state-owned shipbuilder, CSSC, built more commercial vessels by tonnage in 2024 than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has built since the end of World War II. ³

The U.S. Navy’s own shipbuilding programs are consistently over budget and behind schedule. As of September 2024, 37 out of 45 battle force ships under construction (82%) were facing delays. Despite nearly doubling its shipbuilding budget over two decades, the Navy has not increased its number of ships. The GAO has documented a self-reinforcing “doom loop” where delays beget more delays. Virginia-class submarine production runs at approximately 60% of its annual goal. ⁴

The USTR Section 301 port fees on Chinese-built vessels were announced in April 2025 but suspended in November 2025. The USTR finalized port service fees on Chinese-owned, Chinese-built, and foreign-built vehicle carrier vessels on April 17, 2025, with fees starting October 14, 2025 and escalating to $140/net ton by 2028. However, on November 1, 2025, President Trump suspended these fees for one year as part of a U.S.-China trade agreement. The fees that were the administration’s primary enforcement tool against Chinese maritime dominance were paused before the “365 wins” list was even published. ⁵

The NSC maritime office that was supposed to lead the shipbuilding effort was reorganized and its senior staff departed within months. The Maritime and Industrial Capacity Directorate was established at the NSC under National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, with Ian Bennitt as Senior Director. By July 2025 — barely three months after the executive order — Bennitt departed for an industry position, and the shipbuilding effort was moved from the NSC to the Office of Management and Budget. ⁶

Strong Inferences

The Maritime Action Plan is a policy aspiration document, not an operational program. The MAP presents recommendations requiring congressional action: a Maritime Security Trust Fund, Maritime Prosperity Zones, universal port fees on foreign-built vessels, and a Strategic Commercial Fleet. It does not amend or implement any regulatory action, impose obligations, or appropriate funds. The legislative proposals are to be transmitted following the FY2027 budget request — meaning implementation is at least two budget cycles away from the executive order. Multiple analysts have assessed that the plan’s weakness is “the same weakness that has killed every previous attempt: the gap between policy ambition and industrial execution.” ⁷

The U.S. shipbuilding workforce crisis makes rapid capacity expansion extremely difficult regardless of policy. The industry employs approximately 146,500 workers and faces projected demand to more than double that workforce within a decade. Shipyards report attrition rates of 20% or more among younger workers. There is a severe shortage of welders, pipefitters, marine electricians, and naval architects — the exact skilled trades that cannot be quickly trained. Even the administration’s own executive order acknowledges but does not directly remediate this bottleneck. ⁸

The temporary disruption to Chinese shipbuilding orders from U.S. policy announcements proved short-lived. China’s share of global orders briefly dipped below 30% in March-May 2025 following the Section 301 announcement, but recovered to 84% by August 2025. Major shipping companies including Maersk, MSC, and CMA CGM indicated the fees were “unlikely to impact their order behavior.” The suspension of fees in November 2025 further removed any remaining deterrent. ⁹

The bipartisan SHIPS for America Act represents congressional initiative independent of the executive order. First introduced in December 2024 and reintroduced in April 2025, the Act proposes 250 new U.S.-flag vessels over 10 years, $250 million annually for shipbuilding, and tax credits for shipyard investment. This bipartisan effort predates and is separate from the administration’s executive order, though the MAP incorporates elements from the SHIPS Act framework. ¹⁰

What the Evidence Shows

The claim is literally true in the most minimal sense: Trump did direct the creation of a Maritime Action Plan. Executive Order 14269, signed April 9, 2025, does exactly what the claim says — it directs the National Security Advisor to develop a comprehensive plan for American shipbuilding. The language “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again” does appear in administration communications. This is not fabricated or imaginary.

But listing “directed the creation of a plan” as one of 365 “wins” invites scrutiny of what a plan actually accomplishes — and here, the gap between rhetoric and reality is oceanic. When the “365 wins” list was published on January 20, 2026, the plan itself did not yet exist. The 210-day deadline had passed. The NSC office that was supposed to lead the effort had already been gutted and reorganized. And the administration’s primary enforcement tool — the Section 301 port fees on Chinese-built vessels — had been suspended as a trade concession two months earlier.

The underlying industrial reality makes the claim’s aspirational framing almost poignant. The United States builds three large commercial ships while China builds thousands. American shipyards have 0.1% of the global market. The Navy cannot deliver its own warships on time — 82% are behind schedule — despite decades of investment. The workforce shortage is structural and severe. No executive order, however well-intentioned, can bridge this gap in a single presidential term, and multiple expert analyses describe the challenge as requiring “multi-decade” commitment.

The steel-man case for the administration is substantial. The problem is real, strategically critical, and has been ignored for decades. Identifying it publicly, establishing an NSC-level office (however briefly), directing a whole-of-government planning process, and linking it to Section 301 trade enforcement represents more focused executive attention on commercial shipbuilding than any administration has given the issue in generations. The bipartisan SHIPS Act provides a legislative vehicle. The question is whether attention and planning translate into the sustained, multi-decade, multi-hundred-billion-dollar commitment that experts agree is required — and nothing in the first year suggests the answer is yes.

The Bottom Line

Steel-manning the claim: Trump did identify a genuine strategic vulnerability — the collapse of American commercial shipbuilding — and took the most significant executive action to address it in decades. Executive Order 14269 is real, its diagnosis of the problem is largely accurate, and the bipartisan momentum on the SHIPS Act suggests the issue has legs beyond one administration. The administration deserves credit for elevating this issue from a niche defense concern to a national strategic priority.

But “directed the creation of a plan” is, by definition, the lowest-commitment form of government action. It is an instruction to write a document. As of the claim date, that document had not yet been written — and when it arrived a month later, it was a 42-page aspirational blueprint that requires congressional legislation to implement. Meanwhile, the administration’s own enforcement mechanism (Section 301 port fees) was suspended, the NSC office leading the effort was reorganized within three months, and American shipyards continued building three commercial ships in a world that orders five thousand. The claim is true in the way that announcing a diet is true — the intention is real, the need is genuine, but the fork hasn’t been put down yet.

Footnotes

1. White House, “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance,” April 9, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-americas-maritime-dominance/; White House Fact Sheet, “President Donald J. Trump Restores America’s Maritime Dominance,” April 9, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-restores-americas-maritime-dominance/; Defense News, “Trump to launch new White House office focused on shipbuilding,” March 5, 2025. https://www.defensenews.com/news/pentagon-congress/2025/03/05/trump-to-launch-new-white-house-office-focused-on-shipbuilding/ ↩

2. White House, “America’s Maritime Action Plan,” February 13, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Restoring-Americas-Maritime-Dominance.pdf; K&L Gates, “White House Releases Plan to ‘Restore America’s Maritime Dominance,’” February 25, 2026. https://www.klgates.com/White-House-Releases-Plan-to-Restore-Americas-Maritime-Dominance-2-25-2026 ↩

3. Progressive Policy Institute, “American Shipyards Are Building Three of the 5,448 Large Commercial Vessels on Order Worldwide,” 2025 (citing BRS Shipbrokers’ 2025 Annual Review). https://www.progressivepolicy.org/american-shipyards-are-building-three-of-the-5448-large-commercial-vessels-on-order-worldwide/; CSIS, “Unpacking the White House’s Executive Order on Restoring the U.S. Shipbuilding Industry,” 2025. https://www.csis.org/analysis/unpacking-white-houses-executive-order-restoring-us-shipbuilding-industry ↩

4. GAO, “U.S. Navy Shipbuilding Is Consistently Over Budget and Delayed Despite Billions Invested in Industry,” 2024-2025. https://www.gao.gov/blog/u.s.-navy-shipbuilding-consistently-over-budget-and-delayed-despite-billions-invested-industry; GAO-25-108225, “Navy Shipbuilding: Enduring Challenges Call for Systemic Change.” https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-108225 ↩

5. White & Case, “USTR Issues Final Section 301 Actions in China Shipbuilding Investigation,” 2025. https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/ustr-issues-final-section-301-actions-china-shipbuilding-investigation; Federal Register, “Notice of Modification of Section 301 Action,” November 13, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/11/13/2025-19873/notice-of-modification-of-section-301-action-chinas-targeting-of-the-maritime-logistics-and-shipbuilding; Winston & Strawn, “United States Suspends Section 301 China Shipping Fees,” November 2025. https://www.winston.com/en/blogs-and-podcasts/maritime-fedwatch/united-states-suspends-section-301-china-shipping-fees ↩

6. CFR, “Can Trump’s Shipbuilding Order Compete With Chinese Investment?” https://www.cfr.org/article/trump-administrations-office-shipbuilding-takes-first-official-action; gCaptain, “Trump’s Shipbuilding Push Falters as NSC Maritime Office Gutted.” https://gcaptain.com/trump-nsc-shipbuilding-office-shakeup/; USNI News, “White House Shipbuilding Effort Moves to Office of Management and Budget,” July 18, 2025. https://news.usni.org/2025/07/18/white-house-shipbuilding-effort-moves-to-office-of-management-and-budget ↩

7. K&L Gates, “White House Releases Plan to ‘Restore America’s Maritime Dominance,’” February 25, 2026. https://www.klgates.com/White-House-Releases-Plan-to-Restore-Americas-Maritime-Dominance-2-25-2026; Eno Center for Transportation, “Trump Envisions ‘Maritime Golden Age’ through Investments, Fees, and Deregulation,” February 2026. https://enotrans.org/article/trump-envisions-maritime-golden-age-through-investments-fees-and-deregulation/ ↩

8. McKinsey, “Helming a Sea Change: Building the Future Workforce for US Shipbuilding.” https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/aerospace-and-defense/our-insights/helming-a-sea-change-building-the-future-workforce-for-us-shipbuilding; King & Spalding, “Executive Order ‘Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance.’” https://www.kslaw.com/news-and-insights/executive-order-restoring-americas-maritime-dominance-revitalizing-the-us-shipbuilding-and-maritime-industry ↩

9. CSIS, “Are U.S. Policies Eroding China’s Dominance in Shipbuilding?” https://www.csis.org/analysis/are-us-policies-eroding-chinas-dominance-shipbuilding ↩

10. Holland & Knight, “Bipartisan Bill Reintroduced to Enhance U.S. Shipbuilding,” May 2025. https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2025/05/bipartisan-bill-reintroduced-to-enhance-us-shipbuilding-maritime; USNI News, “New SHIPS Act Legislation Aims to Revamp U.S. Shipbuilding Industry,” December 19, 2024. https://news.usni.org/2024/12/19/new-ships-act-legislation-aims-to-revamp-u-s-shipbuilding-industry ↩