A congressional hearing on port safety normally wouldn’t get much attention, but coming so soon after the fatal ship accident that killed six and caused the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, to collapse, there was more interest than usual in the topic.

Indeed, the House subcommittees on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation and Transportation and Maritime Security gathered in Miami to discuss “Port Safety, Security, and Infrastructure Investment” just 10 days after the Dali’s allision (when a ship hits a stationary object) in Baltimore harbor.

The venue for the hearing, the Port of Miami, stands out. It’s a site that hopes to grow its market presence and lead in port technology. It has welcomed the world’s largest cruise ship, the Icon of the Seas. And it can service large Neo Panamax container ships – a too-rare feature of American ports. Sadly, the nation’s maritime sector is not as healthy as it needs be.

Americans are increasingly aware that they can no longer assume their store shelves and gas stations will always be stocked. Since COVID lockdowns ended, shipping backlogs have ensued at times due to decisions made in Beijing – recall that Chinese Communist Party’s COVID Zero policy that shuttered the world’s largest ports for weeks. Then the March 2021 grounding of a container ship shut down the Suez Canal, shocking an already reeling global supply chains. That was followed by global grain supply disruptions caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

And, since October, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have been rattling shipping and markets reliant on trade that crosses the Suez Canal. Add to this the incident in Baltimore, and to most people it’s clear our prosperity, which relies on maritime trade, isn’t as secure as it once was. 

As a maritime nation we have fallen far. Today no U.S. port ranks in the top 25 nations in cargo handling; China holds eight of those spots. Asia also has the most vibrant maritime sector with the most new commercial shipping entrants – again led by China. The point is not that our ports don’t meet today’s need in general, but a lack of competitiveness has not generated the resiliency we need, nor the vibrancy necessary to modernize – which in turn fails to recruit needed new mariners and the shipyard workers.

A consequence of this malaise is on display in Baltimore Harbor. While investigations and recovery operations are ongoing (and it will be some time until all the facts are known), it’s clear that our nation’s maritime industrial sector hasn’t been treated as the strategic asset it is. One need only look at the limited salvage capacity on hand to reopen the nation’s 10th port. It has taken two months to clear the Dali from blocking the harbor. By contrast, reopening the Suez Canal, when the ultra large container ship Ever Given grounded and wedged itself in the canal, was cleared quicker: six days.

To reverse the tide of our national sea blindness requires a national maritime initiative. If done properly, it would rectify our over-reliance on non-friendly nations to sustain our economy, and ensure safe maritime operations, by:

-Providing an adequate American flagged commercial shipping fleet that can sustain the nation in a crisis.

-Expanding shipbuilding, repair and salvage capacities and associated workforces.

-Hardening our maritime infrastructure and shipping to cyber-attack and material damage.

On the first point, existing approaches are inadequate, and there is little time to act as both infrastructure, ships, and mariners age out of service. Change is needed, but because of the century of market distortions created by the Jones Act, a maritime Hippocratic oath of “do no harm” is required to retain the maritime assets protectionist dependent domestic maritime industrial sector. At the same time, the March 12th petition against unfair Chinese trade practices in the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors is an opportunity to strengthen U.S. agencies like the Federal Maritime Commission and press America’s case, while rallying international common cause.

Delivering on the second point requires a stronger and globally competitive maritime sector. This would serve as a deterrent to Chinese economic coercion and military adventures, as the nation would be less reliant on Chinese shipping and its ports. This can be done by fostering a revolution in shipping through a new multi-modalism that would recover American competitiveness in this strategic industrial sector. Achieving this, American trade can proceed with greater confidence and resiliency, and better sustain the military.

Lastly, and perhaps most relevant to recent events, legal and regulatory frameworks of the 9/11 era should be revised. With an eye to adjusting to the New Cold War we find ourselves in with China, the Maritime Security Act of 2002, Container Security Initiative and the Proliferation Security Initiative should be updated. We also need to place into law measures of both the 2020 National Maritime Cybersecurity Plan and the recently enacted executive order EO 14116.

The Biden administration failed to act on the 2020 plan until almost four years later with a similar executive order – though not as thorough as the 2020 one. Still we wait. Over three months later, and two months after the Dali allision, there’s no indication that cyber intrusions are even being considered in the ongoing NTSB investigation, according to a preliminary report recently released.

Countermeasures that bolster our maritime sector’s cyber defenses must be de-politicized by being memorialized in law by an act of Congress.

An easy first step in getting the nation underway on a National Maritime Initiative is to update the 1989 National Security Directive 28 on Sealift, with Congress passing enabling legislation. Regaining American maritime competitiveness will not be easy nor cheap, but failing to address the nation’s sea blindness will further place our nation’s economic and national security in the hands of non-friendly parties. 

About the Author: Brent Sadler 

Brent Sadler joined Heritage Foundation after a 26 year Navy career with numerous operational tours on nuclear powered submarines, personal staffs of senior Defense Department leaders, and as a military diplomat in Asia. As a Senior Research Fellow, Brent’s focus is on maritime security and the technologies shaping our future maritime forces, especially the Navy.

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