Name: Collapse of U.S. shipbuilding poses national and economic security risks | 60 Minutes
Uploaded: 2026-03-23T21:33:59.000Z
Duration: 13 min 8 s
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Adverbs of degree

The war in Iran is highlighting the importance of ships, not just warships, but

cargo vessels, like those carrying oil or gas trapped near the Strait of Hormuz.

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But American shipbuilding is in shambles due to decades of shortsighted policies and neglect.

Our submarine building program is sluggish, and our commercial shipbuilding is nearly extinct.

China makes roughly 1,000 cargo ships a year; the U.S.

The Trump administration has called this a national security crisis, but can this ship be turned around?

This is the Philadelphia Shipyard, one of only two left in the U.S.

Once a symbol of American might and innovation, ships built here helped win our independence in the 18th century and World War II in the 20th.

This shipyard has become a symbol of American industrial decline, a money loser falling decades behind our global rivals.

Now, talk about a metaphor of how far behind we are.

A lot of times people call it a dinosaur.

Almost everything that you've seen out there.

David Kim, the new head of the Philly Shipyard, showed us around.

He works for Hanwha, a giant shipmaker from South Korea, the country making most ships after China.

Hanwha bought the yard in 2024 for $100 million, then poured in another $100 million and tasked Kim, a Korean-American born and bred in Texas, to bring it into the 21st century.

How many ships do you actually make here?

Here at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard, we deliver 1 to 1 and a half ships a year, versus our yard in Korea where they deliver basically one a week.

One a year for delivery versus one a week?

is considered a national security threat because if there's a conflict with China, for instance, Beijing could weaponize its substantial merchant fleet and cut us off from global goods.

Hanwha plans to spend $5 billion in Philly and has already sent 50 trainers from Korea to teach American workers.

Our aspiration is to get to up to 20 ships a year here at the shipyard.

And we're looking to grow the workforce by, call it, 7 to 10 thousand people.

Only there's a huge shortage in the U.S. of skilled labor in shipbuilding, including welders and pipe fitters.

This work is grueling: freezing in winter, scorching in summer, and it's dangerous.

And while the yard has a training program, it can only train 20 or so new hires at a time,

Still, apprentices Justin, Jeff, and Meg told us this beats their old jobs.

Before this job, I was a cake decorator at a bakery.

If you were to pitch this job and this place to a friend, what would you say?

I would tell my friend that instead of paying out of pocket to go to a trade school, you're getting paid while you learn here, the entire time.

Granted, I'm more tired, but it's more fulfilling to me.

Makes you feel like you're something, part of something bigger.

But not only are workers scarce and the yard outdated, the Philly Shipyard has to bring key components to the U.S., such as propellers and even the engine.

So ships that take six months to build in Korea or China can take twice as long here and cost five times as much.

There's no doubt that we have challenges and headwinds,

but I also think we have a unique moment in time.

Michael Coulter, who's Hanwha's top executive in charge of U.S.

operations, says the way to lower prices is scale up production.

So you're saying if we build more ships, then the cost per ship will come down?

He took us to Hanwha Shipyard in Korea, where nine ships are being built at once, four in a row like Lego sets the size of football fields.

Steel chunks bigger than buildings hover over the ground.

They're lifted above the water, or they just glide by.

He showed us how far ahead they are technologically: rows and rows of robots.

But even with all the automation, the human workforce keeps growing.

There are over 26,000 workers on site, many getting around on low-tech because this place is so vast.

And the yard keeps hiring, training 400 workers at once, way more than the 20 in Philly.

And they're taught using cutting-edge virtual reality.

It's a dance of tech, cranes, trucks, and bikes.

And this yard also builds military vessels, including submarines, which the U.S.

desperately needs since our fleet is aging and we can barely make new ones.

From a Hanwha perspective, we build great submarines.

government that if they so wish, we will build submarines for them in the United States and in Philadelphia, just like we do in Korea.

Is the ultimate goal for your company to build nuclear submarines for the U.S.

Submarine program in the United States is heading in the wrong direction, and we think we can help.

Another way Hanwha says it wants to help the U.S.

is with transporting liquefied natural gas, or LNG, hoping to build these giant LNG tankers in Philly.

The United States is the largest producer of natural gas.

And yet we don't have any LNG ships that we make ourselves.

While we export LNG on foreign carriers to over 30 countries.

One country we don't send it to is other parts of the United States.

Colin Greybow, a trade expert at the Libertarian Cato Institute, explains that a century-old law called the Jones Act requires that any cargo shipped between U.S.