America at Sea: Voices That Matter continues with Dr. Sal Mercogliano, maritime historian, former merchant mariner and host of What’s Going On With Shipping? Sal is a professor at Campbell University, where he chairs the Department of History, Criminal Justice and Political Science, and he teaches maritime industry policy at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy [1]. He answers the same three questions we ask everyone.
New to the SHIPS for America Act? Start with our plain-English primer.
[PASTE THE X POST LINK HERE ON ITS OWN LINE]
Join the conversation. Reply to the post above on X and tell us what’s working, what’s in the way, and what you’d fix first.
What we heard
What’s working: the small and mid-size yards. Sal doesn’t want to be “the Debbie Downer.” The U.S. fleet of deep-draft oceangoing ships has fallen from about 450 when he graduated in 1989 to 180-some today, but he sees real strength in inland and coastal shipping, tugs and ferries, and the yards that build them. Build more at that level, he says, and you rebuild the steel, pipefitters, electricians and suppliers that bigger ships need. Add automation and new propulsion like small modular nuclear reactors, and technology can offset higher U.S. costs.
What’s in the way: a market tilted against us. After World War II, America chose not to dominate shipping and helped allies build their yards. That opened the door to China, which Sal says went from building 5% of the world’s ships in 1999 to 70% today.
“The free market doesn’t work when the other sides are putting their foot on the scale.” — Dr. Sal Mercogliano
He suggests a target of five to 10 percent U.S.-built, U.S.-flag ships in American international trade, up from about 2% now. And he pushes back on blaming the Jones Act: in 1920, he says, it was part of a whole national security strategy, and over the past century we took the rest of that strategy apart.
What he’d fix first: leadership. Sal says the SHIPS Act’s national maritime advisor is what’s needed, because authority today is spread across agencies.
“I think we need one. I really do. We need someone who can sit there and direct it, because what we have right now is diffusion.” — Dr. Sal Mercogliano
He points to history: Edward Hurley at the U.S. Shipping Board in World War I, and Adm. Emory S. “Jerry” Land in World War II, who between them oversaw thousands of ships. Since the 1980s, he notes, the House lost its Merchant Marine Subcommittee, and today each advocacy group speaks for its own slice. “There’s really no one doing it for the entire sector holistically.” (For more on Land, see our Backstory post, The Last Time One Person Led America at Sea.)
Why education matters. “I’m an educator,” Sal says. “What you’re doing here with America at Sea is an important element… we need to be educating people about this. We’re a maritime nation.”
The three questions
1. What’s working right now that we should do more of?
2. What’s the biggest barrier to rebuilding America at sea?
3. If you could fix one thing first, what would it be?
Transcript
Lightly edited for readability.
Bill Cullifer: Bill Cullifer here with Americans for a Stronger Navy. Welcome back to America at Sea: Voices That Matter. Today we’re here with Sal Mercogliano, maritime historian, former merchant mariner and host of What’s Going On With Shipping? Same three questions for everyone: what’s working, what’s in the way, and what he’d fix first. Sal, over to you.
Introduction
Sal Mercogliano: I’m Sal Mercogliano. I’m a professor at Campbell University and chair of the Department of History, Criminal Justice and Political Science. I’m a former merchant mariner. I sailed and worked ashore in the industry. And I’m adjunct at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, where I teach a course in maritime industry policy. Five years ago now, I started a YouTube channel called What’s Going On With Shipping, where I talk about all global shipping, logistics, U.S., international, you name it, along with a little history thrown in there.
What’s working right now that we should do more of?
When you look at what’s working in the United States, there’s a couple of things. I don’t like to be the Debbie Downer here all the time. In truth, during my entire career — I graduated from the State University of New York Maritime College in 1989 — the maritime industry in many ways has been on the decline. We’ve gone from 450 ships when I graduated down to 180-some ships today, deep-draft oceangoing vessels involved in both international trade and the Jones Act.
But there are certain areas where we’re pretty robust: inland waters, coastal waters, the tug and ferry industry. We have good small and medium-sized shipyards. Where we’re at odds is really on the international scope, building deep-draft vessels that compete on the international market. And in truth, that was never an objective of the United States. The U.S. came out of World War II never wanting to be the dominant shipper on the planet. We didn’t want to take the role of the British. Instead, we very much believed it was better for everyone if you had a diverse shipping fleet out there. Ownership was diverse, nationalities were diverse. And what we focused on was the U.S. Navy, making sure the seas were protected.
Unfortunately, what we’re seeing today is that’s the problem. We’re seeing a challenge to freedom of the seas, and most importantly, in the United States our maritime industrial base has largely shifted since the ’80s to just supporting the U.S. Navy and not a commercial industry.
I think we need to look at how we do shipbuilding on a smaller and medium scale and ramp that up. What are we doing with tugs? With small to medium-sized vessels? If we start building at that level even more, I think we can start building at a larger level. That starts building the industrial base: the steel industry, the pipefitters, electricians, pumps, all those elements we can use to build larger ships.
We also need to look at technology, which is a big thing for the United States. Our big shipyards are so far behind that we can completely modernize them. Automation and autonomy are systems we could be using to build new shipyards or add-ons to existing ones. And we could be bringing forth new technology for ship propulsion, such as small modular nuclear reactors. That could be a game changer. What I’ve seen historically is that technology allows the U.S. to compete over the costs associated with the United States, which tend to be a little bit higher. So I think we’ve got to lean in to that technology.
What’s the biggest barrier to rebuilding America at sea?
What’s in the way is a lot of things that we structured and created ourselves. The United States created the open registries on the international market. We facilitated the European, Japanese and Korean shipyards to build up, and in many ways that’s the barrier today, because they’re very efficient, especially the Japanese and Korean yards. And one of the problems is we opened the door for the rise of China. We’ve seen China go from building 5% of global ships in 1999 to building 70% here in 2026. That’s a major impediment.
We have got to get into our mindset that we are competing in shipbuilding and sailing ships on an international market, and the free market doesn’t work when the other sides are putting their foot on the scale. If you want to use free-market capitalism in international shipping, you’ve got to do something to remove the advantages that China, Korea, Japan, the Liberian flag, the Marshall Islands and Panama have. Otherwise it’s not a fair measurement. You can say it costs three to five times more to build a ship in the United States. Well, give us the advantages and incentives these other countries have, and that cost goes down tremendously. It’s still going to be expensive, but not as expensive as that.
One of the big things in the way is recognizing that shipping is a national security issue. What we did in the 1980s was offshore our shipbuilding base. Now we’re coming to realize that’s a problem, and we need to bring that back onshore. I’m not talking about building 100% of all ships in international trade in the U.S. But we should have a good target: somewhere between five to 10 [percent of] ships carrying American trade internationally should be U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged vessels. We’re at 2% right now. We can also buy ships on the international market and put them into international trade. That’s not coastal. That doesn’t violate the Jones Act.
At the same time, we need to revitalize domestic shipbuilding. The cabotage provision of the Jones Act, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, was never intended to be sufficient to sustain U.S. shipbuilding on its own. It was part of a larger whole. That’s the argument I have with lots of people who say the Jones Act is the problem. The Jones Act, as created in 1920, was a holistic act. It was a national security strategy. What we’ve done over the past 106 years is dismantle it. So we’ve got to start fixing some of those provisions and putting them back in place.
We should also be looking at how other countries go about their shipbuilding and maritime strategy, China, Japan and Korea particularly, and see what we need to emulate. And one of the biggest things we need to do is get Congress to act, to push through legislation that’s sitting there right now, things like the SHIPS Act. That needs to be done.
If you could fix one thing first, what would it be?
If Sal was king for a day — and I said this in testimony before Congress — there needs to be leadership. One of the things the SHIPS Act has is a national maritime advisor, kind of a maritime czar. I think we need one. I really do. We need someone who can sit there and direct it, because what we have right now is diffusion. The Maritime Administration has a very narrow view and control over what it has. Same thing with the Navy’s shipbuilding office.
We really need someone who can be the advocate here, up on the Hill in congressional offices, out there in the public, out there with businesses, talking about this maritime issue. I’m an educator. I think we need to do more. What you’re doing here with America at Sea is an important element, because we need to be educating people about this. We’re a maritime nation. We’ve been a maritime nation since we were 13 little colonies looking out at the Atlantic. And even though we became a massive continental power, we’re still dependent on trade. We’ve seen recently how easily trade can be disrupted, by nations and even by non-nations like the Houthis.
If you look at the two big shipbuilding programs in the history of the United States in the 20th century, you had a guy like Edward Hurley, who headed the U.S. Shipping Board. He revitalized it and was able to produce about 2,700 ships during and after the First World War. Then in World War II, you had Emory S. Land, Jerry Land, in charge of the U.S. Maritime Commission, along with the War Shipping Administration and the U.S. Maritime Service. He was able to build 5,777 ships from 1937 to 1945.
So I just think we need some leadership here, someone advocating for the merchant marine and the maritime sector on a continual basis. I do it, but it’s not a full-time job for me. You’re doing it. Others are doing it. But what we definitely need is somebody out there making the call. Since the 1980s, we’ve seen this kind of curtailment. We lost the Merchant Marine Subcommittee in the House, which was a great place for it, because there was a lot of expertise on that committee. Today what we have are advocacy groups advocating for their slice of the maritime sector, but really no one doing it for the entire sector holistically. And I think that’s what’s been missing.
While we argue, China plans. It’s time we started building.
Americans for a Stronger Navy is a nonpartisan organization. America at Sea is educational and does not urge support for or opposition to any legislation. Views expressed by guests are their own.
References
[1] FreightWaves, speaker profile, “Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D.”: https://live.freightwaves.com/event-speakers/salvatore-r-mercogliano-ph-d