China's kicking our butts in warship-building — here's how we can catch up

The USS Gravely, a US Navy warship, departs the Port of Port of Spain on October 30, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

US shipbuilding is in trouble.

China builds 200 merchant ships a year for every one America builds.

The gap is smaller for warships, but falling behind there is more dangerous — and Beijing built more than 100 naval vessels over the past decade, while the US Navy got fewer than 50.

If President Donald Trump wants to reverse this trend and build a “Golden Fleet,” he needs to lead this effort, direct the Navy and the shipyards and convince members of Congress that it’s time to put national interests ahead of parochial ones.

China’s navy is now the world’s numerically biggest, and its ships are much newer than ours — three times as many are less than 15 years old.

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