Sen. Sheehy says US shipbuilding crisis threatens national security

Sen. Tim Sheehy warned that a crisis in American shipbuilding has left the United States dangerously outpaced by an aggressively expanding Chinese fleet.

Speaking on “The Rundown” podcast, the former Navy SEAL said China is now constructing ships much faster than the U.S., creating a national security problem.

“Our Navy right now is not where it needs to be,” Sheehy told ’ Aishah Hasnie.

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“Right now, our fleet, when you compare us to China, they build ships 230 times faster than we do. Their shipyards can turn around repairs 90% faster than we can,” he later added.

Sheehy blamed the slowdown on the country becoming complacent during a prolonged period of peace, arguing the U.S. wasn’t prepared for future conflicts. He warned that while a depleted Army can be fixed in just one to two years, rebuilding the Navy’s industrial base is a much deeper, longer-term problem.

“We’ve allowed our shipbuilding industry to atrophy over the past 30 years to a point that’s really quite scary because we felt the peace dividend was permanent, Pax Americana was here to stay, and we felt we don’t need these big expensive ships anymore,” he said.

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Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., was seen during a series of Senate votes at the U.S. Capitol on June 17, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Sheehy said rebuilding the Army could take one to two years and the Air Force up to five years. But he argued the skills needed for shipbuilding are far more difficult to restore, adding that America hasn’t built ships in a “meaningful way in a long time.”

The Trump administration has been a vocal critic of the slowdown in U.S. shipbuilding. In April 2025, the White House released an executive order attempting to tackle the issue, writing policy to revitalize and rebuild the maritime industry.

The order created the Maritime Action Plan (MAP) to reignite the industry, helped make it easier for private industry to build vessels and instructed members of the Cabinet to work on strategies to boost the output.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on April 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The order sought to revive the U.S. shipbuilding industry and directed a review of Navy procurement and operations. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Image)

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During a joint address to Congress, Trump vowed he would “resurrect” the shipbuilding industry, saying, “We used to make so many ships. We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.”

Sheehy said part of the problem has been the decimation of shipbuilding sites. He blamed the building of condos and a boom in value for waterfront real estate, adding that industries viewed as “dirty” or “loud” were often shipped overseas.

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“Let’s take the heavy industries and push them to other countries because they’re dirty, and they’re loud, and they’re not as profitable, and let’s make our system based on financial optimization,” Sheehy said.

“And as a result, we lost invaluable and irreplaceable assets for the ability to not just build a Navy but maintain it. So, we’re now at a moment where both parties are realizing we have under-invested in our fleet,” he later added.