“Quite a task” ahead for US shipyards, says Maersk CEO
Vincent Clerc, Maersk CEO (Source: Maersk)
It will be seven years before the US could deliver a commercial ship – let alone establishing sufficient shipbuilding capacity to challenge China’s global dominance, said Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc.
Recent pledges by the President to build “unbelievable ships” and create “jobs, great jobs” in the US shipbuilding sector have come under scrutiny as US shipyards suffer from acute hiring crises likely to be further exacerbated by the administration’s stance on immigration. American shipyards are “clawing” for workers as matters currently stand, Ron Wille, the president and chief operating officer of All American Marine in Washington state, told ProPublica recently.
Clerc said there was an argument to be made that having “all of the manufacturing, design, innovation and know-how… in the one country you consider your rival” was a strategic liability for the US, but said that revitalising US shipyards would be “quite a task” and would take “one and a half lifetimes (in political terms)”.
The current US-flagged fleet stands at just 200 vessels. Last year, United Steelworkers union floated the idea of a million USD fee levied for each call from a Chinese-built vessel at a US port, to generate income which could then be used to support a build-up of US shipyard capacity.
