Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?

That's easy: because the US is a nuclear armed power, the pacific aircraft carrier called "Japan" is friendly, and there hasn't been a Pearl Harbor. Everything follows from there.

While there is peace, US domestic shipbuilding fundamentally doesn't "matter" all that much politically, not compared to all the thousands of other daily issues or the big issue, tax. The article makes clear that all previous efforts at onshoring shipbuilding, including the hugely successful war efforts, involved spending a lot of public money.

If you ask the average taxpayer, how much do they want to spend on subsidies for US shipyard workers, what answer are you going to get?

(I also think the Jones Act, like other protectionism, keeps the industry intact but inefficient, another uncomfortable choice)

>> high cost of inputs, particularly labor and steel

Well, yes. A side effect of being a rich country is expensive labour because workers have other options.

> But it now faces a potential naval adversary, in the form of China, with dramatically higher shipbuilding capacity

The US has something like 5,000 live nuclear warheads, use of which might significantly reduce Chinese shipping if it comes to that.

This would not be an issue if major wars were not popping up everywhere or if China has not been building a naval fleet to challenge the U.S.

If China and the U.S. get into a conflict, like every war it will be a question of war production. It takes a long time to build a modern ship. It takes even longer to build a shipyard capable of producing modern ships.

Any great power war will be long and drawn out unless nukes are used.

In a defense of Taiwan or anywhere else in the South China Sea, the defenders advantage will play a role. China with it's numerous shipyards and hypersonic weapons could easily keep the U.S. Navy out and then even more easily out produce it to replace lost ships.

It's also a questionable strategy to outsource your ship building to the two countries closest to your only potential naval rival. Usually countries fighting protracted long wars do not put their primary means of production next to enemy forces.

Hopefully things remain peaceful and this never matters.

Corporate and Wall Street in the pursuit of profit chose to offshore a lot of manufacturing. It's not going to be easy or quick to rebuild these. To win a war you have to have the capacity to quickly build replacements and hold onto resources you need. The answer is not to play the game.

I would venture the implied discussion is about more than shipbuilding. Resources, labor, regulation, and other factors raised in the article are endemic across lots of areas and seems symptomatic of market forces and government policy. As a counter argument, I have to ask why the U.S. needs to build ships faster, larger, cheaper than other countries? The U.S. certainly seems to be able to build infrastructure and housing reasonably competitively.

Do the same factors also apply at our relative incompetence at building planes that don’t crash and semiconductors?

Americans are pretty much only good at making IP now… which is more valuable from a monetary standpoint.

Ah yes, we will need ships for the coming US/China war where both sides agree to confine the conflict to the water.

TLDR; Labor unions and protectionism.

I live near a major shipyard. The answer is unions. They throw a fit almost weekly.