Sponsors (138)
Introduced May 1, 2025 by Trent Kelly · Last progress May 1, 2025
The bill prioritizes rebuilding a U.S. maritime industrial base and strengthening national sea‑lift and supply‑chain resilience through subsidies, mandates, and coordinated planning — at the cost of higher federal spending, more regulatory and compliance requirements, potential trade frictions, and likely higher shipping costs for consumers and importers.
U.S. shipbuilders, maritime manufacturers, and mariners will get sustained demand, subsidies, and incentives (tax credits, loans, Trust Fund support) that expand domestic shipbuilding, repair, and related jobs.
Military logisticians, coastal communities, and taxpayers will see stronger national security and resilience through increased U.S. strategic sealift, surge capacity, vetted carriers, and improved readiness (including cache/cable‑repair preparedness and blocking hostile-state vessels).
Ports, inland waterways, multimodal freight corridors, and seaports will benefit from targeted infrastructure coordination, planning, and investments to reduce bottlenecks and improve freight reliability and resilience.
Taxpayers and the federal budget will face materially higher costs from new appropriations, redirected customs/penalty revenues, large tax credits, and Trust Fund expenditures, increasing deficit pressure or crowding out other priorities.
Importers, shippers, and consumers (including small businesses) are likely to face higher shipping costs, tariffs/penalties, cargo‑preference pricing, and reduced competition because of domestic‑preference rules, per‑ton taxes, and U.S.-flag carriage mandates.
The bill creates authorities and restrictions (entity/shipyard designations, foreign‑entity exclusions, bans on certain foreign components) that could provoke trade tensions, disrupt existing supply chains, and deter foreign investment or cooperation.
Based on analysis of 26 sections of legislative text.
Creates a national maritime strategy with White House governance, a Maritime Security Trust Fund, vessel tax credits and loan programs, export rules for crude-by-ship, workforce benefits, and USMMA modernization.
Establishes a whole-of-government national maritime strategy and creates new programs, funding sources, and rules to rebuild U.S. commercial shipbuilding, maritime workforce, and strategic sealift capacity. It creates governance in the White House, a Maritime Security Trust Fund, tax and loan incentives for U.S.-built vessels, export conditions requiring a growing share of crude exports to move on U.S.-built and U.S.-flag ships, new workforce and education benefits for merchant mariners, strengthened research and innovation programs, and a required modernization plan for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Implements reporting, drills, and assessments to test readiness of strategic fleets and cable repair capability; updates federal freight planning to consider sealift; tightens rules on foreign entities of concern; and subsidizes shipbuilding and vessel investment (including a new vessel investment tax credit and a revolving loan fund) to expand the U.S. fleet and industrial base over the coming decade.