"Quite frankly, I think the American shipbuilding industry has become disconnected, arrogant, and greedy,” retired navy commander Kirk Lippold told AFN.
Trump, concerned the U.S. Navy fleet is being stretched too thin around the world, is also aware that China has surpassed the U.S. in shipbuilding in recent years as it competes for global influence.
Hung Coa, the Acting Navy Secretary, told Fox News there are only two U.S.-based ship builders.
“We need 350 ships,” Cao said.
Robert Maness, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, has worked as a consultant with the national defense industry. He told AFN the Pentagon must find a way to increase ship manufacturing to the levels it once was.
“This is an innovative way to try to shrink that timeline a little bit,” Maness agreed.
Those foreign shipbuilders would come from South Korea and Japan, Lippold said, and they would demonstrate how to improve 21st-century shipbuilding with new skills and innovation.
“I think that is a good thing for America because we don't have a lock on every single innovative brain cell in the world,” Lippold said. “In fact, I think we can learn a lot from them."
The plan for more ships also means a bigger Pentagon budget, $1.5 trillion. That budget request is likely to face opposition in Congress from anti-military Democrats and from Republicans alarmed over the nation’s current debt, which is $39.5 trillion and adding $7.7 billion a day.
