Braxton Taylor
President Donald Trump vowed to bring shipbuilding “home to America, where it belongs,” while also promising tax incentives and a brand-new office in the executive branch to reinvigorate the industry during his joint address to Congress on Tuesday.
Background: “Navalists have been sounding alarms for years, but the issue leapt to the fore in summer 2023, when a briefing slide prepared by the Office of Naval Intelligence reported that China’s shipyards can build around 232 times more tonnage than their U.S. counterparts,” write Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams and Bradley Peniston.
Developing: The Trump administration is drafting an executive order on the topic, reports the Wall Street Journal, which reviewed a preliminary draft with 18 measures. They include the new office at the National Security Council, imposing fees on Chinese-built ships and cranes entering U.S. ports, increasing wages for nuclear-shipyard workers, and instructions to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to review the Navy’s procurement efforts.
“The measures being considered draw on bipartisan proposals that have been circulating in Washington for several years,” including legislation introduced in December, WSJ continues. “Many of those earlier proposals faced months of scrutiny or an uncertain political process. Trump could fast-track them with a stroke of his pen if implemented as an executive order.”
Industry reax: “We applaud the creation of the White House Office of Shipbuilding and the entire shipyard industrial base not only stands at the ready to work with the new Office of U.S. Shipbuilding but we are also ready to answer the call to design and build America’s commercial and military fleets,” President of the Shipbuilders Council of America Matthew Paxton said in a statement. “By fully utilizing the existing domestic shipyard capacity, the shipyard industrial base can meet the growing demands of national defense, restore American competitiveness, and create thousands of skilled jobs in communities across the nation.”
ICYMI: Check out our two-part podcast series on the U.S. shipbuilding industry, which featured Paxton and focused separately on the Navy and the commercial sector, as U.S. officials scramble to catch up to China’s contemporary maritime dominance.
One last thing: China’s embassy in the U.S. has a stern message for Trump. “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” the embassy tweeted during the president’s address to a joint session of Congress.
Related reading:
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Bradley Peniston and Ben Watson. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons went into effect. The countries that have not signed the treaty include India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and South Sudan.
Around the Defense Department
At least one Pentagon agency has begun firing probationary workers. It’s the Defense Logistics Agency, which on Monday began dismissing its share of the 5,400 employees to be fired as the first step in what will ultimately be a 5- to 8-percent reduction in the Pentagon’s roughly 764,000-member civilian workforce. The Trump administration has ordered executive-branch departments to develop plans by March 13 to slash their workforces through layoffs.
How it went: One DLA employee told GovExec they were fired just after 1 p.m. Monday, when their supervisor called to deliver the news. The call was followed by an email from DLA’s director of human resources. “I was told to report to the building and I had 15 minutes to get my things and turn in my computer/cell phone,” the employee said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. They weren’t allowed to finish the workday. “As we already know, these terminations were not performance-based. I am a veteran, I have received one group award and one on-the-spot award for my performance at the DLA, and my mid-year performance report was all 5’s—the best score you can receive,” the terminated employee said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that “poor performers” would be the first employees to go.
DLA leaders tried to reassure their employees in a Monday message: “Our commitment to supporting the workforce remains steadfast, and we will continue to provide updates as they become available.” Defense One’s Williams and Peniston have more, here.
Related reading: “Hegseth’s Plans to Reshape the Military Start With Cuts,” says the New York Times, taking a broader look at the SecDef’s announced path.
One example: Pentagon efforts to reduce civilian deaths in war zones. The Trump administration, which began in late January to shut the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, is expanding to cover the entire Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response effort, which “includes dozens of staffers worldwide who work alongside commanders to refine targeting operations, along with a center overseen by the Army that outlines best practices and training for military leaders to follow,” the Washington Post reports.
Actually closing the Center will require Congressional action, as it is mandated by 10 USC 184. (Hat tip to Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group.)
“No more viable option than NGAD.” With the future of the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter jet in limbo, service officials pointed to a recent internal study to buttress their argument that there’s no better way to secure the air in future conflicts than the Next Generation Air Dominance program, Defense One’s Audrey Decker reports from this week’s AFA conference in Aurora, Colorado.
Foreign aid
New: The Supreme Court just ordered the Trump administration to resume nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funding. Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Comey Barrett joined Elena Kagan, Sonio Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson in the Wednesday decision, which you can read over (PDF) here.
Elsewhere around the federal government:
Ukraine at a crossroads
Not just military aid: Trump also ordered a halt to sharing certain U.S. intelligence with Ukraine following the president’s blow-up in the Oval Office during President Volodymir Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Wednesday morning on Fox Business News.
Ratcliffe: “Trump had a real question about whether President Zelenskyy was committed to the peace process and he said, ‘Let’s pause’,” the director said, and added, “President Trump is going to hold everyone accountable to drive peace around the world.”
Still, he predicted the halt won’t last forever—suggesting Zelenskyy may soon sign some version of a mineral-rights deal sought by Trump, who leans heavily on transactionalism for his foreign policy.
Halted U.S. military aid to Ukraine include “interceptor missiles for Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems,” according to the New York Times, writing Tuesday that “Ukraine had enough key munitions to last into the summer because of the surge in deliveries the United States made before President Biden left office,” according to a former U.S. official.
“I think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause I think will go away,” said Ratcliffe, “and I think we’ll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine as we have to push back on the aggression that’s there, but to put the world in a better place for these peace negotiations to move forward.”
Zelenskyy’s updated pitch for peace: “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” the Ukrainian president said in a statement Tuesday morning. “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts,” he said, and added, “None of us wants an endless war.”
What’s new? Zelenskyy pitched “the first stages” of an agreement as possibly including “the release of prisoners and truce in the sky,” which, he said, means a “ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure—and truce in the sea immediately.”
One condition: Russia must also “do the same,” he said of the two truces and prisoner exchange.
Reax: “Zelensky’s proposal seemed clearly designed to shift the burden for ending the war onto Russia” while at the same time “Trump is not applying any pressure on Russia to stop,” the New York Times reported.
Trump’s remarks Tuesday evening: “We’ve had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?”
By the way: 70% of Americans disagree with Trump’s view that Ukraine is more to blame than Russia for Putin’s Ukraine invasion, according to new polling conducted by Reuters/Ipsos. And just 46% say the U.S. “should get a share of Ukraine’s minerals,” with 76% of Republicans feeling this way compared to just 21% of Democrats.
Commentary: “By halting Ukraine aid, Trump courts personal defeat,” argue John Hardie and Mark Montgomery of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
One forecast: It will take “five years as a minimum” for Europe to “fully deter Russia without any US contribution,” Luigi Scazzieri of the London-based Centre for European Reform told NBC News. “You can probably get something that fills a large part of the gap in 2-3 years — but only with a lot of urgency,” he added.
Additional reading:
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