The Trump administration moved its shipbuilding mission from the National Security Council to the White House Office of Management and Budget about three months after President Trump in April unveiled his “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” executive order.
With the measure, Mr. Trump vowed to reinvigorate the country’s lagging shipbuilding industry and counter aggressive industrial moves from adversaries like China. The White House said the U.S. annually produces less than 1% of the world’s commercial vessels, while Chinese shipyards churn out half of the vessels produced worldwide every year.
But amid a shakeup at the NSC that has seen significant reductions in its workforce, the shipbuilding office now has a new home.
“The shipbuilding office will operate under OMB. This comes after the $43 billion shipbuilding investment in The Great, Big, Beautiful Bill,” White House deputy spokesperson Anna Kelly said on social media.
A request from the White House for additional information on the shipbuilding changes was not immediately returned.
The NSC’s shipbuilding office was spearheaded by former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Ian Bennitt, a former congressional staffer on the House Armed Services Committee who joined the National Security Council in January 2025.
Mr. Waltz is now the Trump administration’s pick for U.N. ambassador, while Mr. Bennitt left the White House to take a senior position with a California-based aerospace defense contractor.
Transferring the responsibility from the National Security Council to the Office of Management and Budget doesn’t mean the White House is any less focused on the issue. Increasing the country’s shipbuilding capacity remains a top priority, Trump administration officials said.
“There is also a greater emphasis on shipbuilding at [the] State [Department],” a White House spokesperson told Breaking Defense, an online publication that reports on strategy and the defense industry.
The White House said the country’s shipbuilding capacity and maritime workforce have been weakened by years of government neglect. It has led to a decline of what had been a strong domestic industry while simultaneously empowering adversaries and eroding U.S. national security.
“Both our allies and our strategic competitors produce ships for a fraction of the cost needed in the United States,” according to the president’s executive order. “It is the policy of the United States to revitalize and rebuild domestic maritime industries and workforce to promote national security and economic prosperity.”
The Defense Department has earmarked nearly $6 billion for the shipbuilding industrial base from 2014 through 2023 and plans to spend an additional $12.6 billion through 2028, according to a February study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
“But, it has yet to fully determine the effectiveness of that support — its return on investment — though it has taken steps to do so,” the GAO report stated.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.