It's also about subsidies to keep the shipbuilding industry from leaving the U.S. completely. If not for continuous shipbuilding contracts, the U.S. would quickly find itself dependent on foreign nations to build warships for us. That's not good for a country that's number 10 in the world for total shipping by tonnage but isn't even among the top 15 countries for ship building.
Percentage of Global Ships Built In 2021
1. People’s Republic of China - 44.2%
2. Republic of Korea - 32.4%
3. Japan - 17.6%
4. Republic of the Philippines - 1.06%
5. Italian Republic - 0.82%
6. Federal Republic of Germany - 0.63%
7. Socialist Republic of Vietnam - 0.61%
8. Republic of Finland - 0.36%
9. Taiwan - 0.30%
10. French Republic - 0.29%
11. Kingdom of Norway - 0.24%
12. Russian Federation - 0.22%
13. Republic of Turkiye - 0.22%
14. Netherlands - 0.19%
15. Republic of India - 0.12%
P.S. -- There are more than 87,000 ocean-going vessels registered in the world today. The Navy has about 500 ships in service and our reserve fleet (combined). Do the math. U.S. Navy contracts represent a tiny fraction of the shipbuilding capacity in the world today.