Wrong the decline in shipbuilding in the USA (once the worlds leading ship builder) is free trade, we don't build ships anymore, we send shipbuilding to asia, years and years ago, now we can't maintain our own Navy any longer.
"... now we can't maintain our own Navy any longer."
The decline in Naval shipbuilding is the result of a *political* decision to have a smaller Navy, by half compared to 20 years ago. I can assure you that if the Congress decided to double the number of ships in the Navy (and the hidebound bureaucrats in the Pentagon went along with it), the folks at Newport News and Electric Boat would quickly put in place the infrastructure to respond to the increase in orders.
As for commercial shipbuilding, Newport News tried to get back into that product line in the early 1990's and quickly discovered two things: (1) it had no cost, productivity, or technological advantages over foreign yards; (2) there were no complementarities between commercial and military shipbuilding - in fact, quite the opposite, as their money-losing commercial business was siphoning off scarce, skilled workers from the military side.