USA May Turn to Allies for Warship Construction Amid Workforce Shortage

The US Navy may turn to foreign partners to help build warships as it works to meet the fleet’s growing needs.

US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said this during a speech at the Sea-Air-Space 2026 conference in Washington, according to Defense News.

He noted that the US shipbuilding industry is facing a worker shortage, which is already slowing the pace of ship construction.

Because of this, the Pentagon is considering all possible ways to improve the situation, including working more closely with allies.

He cited overseas ship repair and maintenance as a successful example of such cooperation. In particular, partnerships with Japan and South Korea are already helping reduce the strain on US shipbuilding capacity.

South Korean shipbuilding giants HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean have already secured three 2026 contracts to service US Navy ships.

Most of these contracts involve vessels from the US Seventh Fleet, which is based in Japan and operates in the Indo-Pacific region.

In November 2025, US Chief of Naval Operations Daryl Caudle visited South Korean shipyards, where he studied local shipbuilding practices with a view to potentially applying them in the United States.

Meanwhile, the Navy plans to reform its contracting system. In particular, it is considering introducing bonuses for early project completion, with part of those rewards going directly to shipyard workers.

According to Phelan, shipbuilders are already proving they can work faster. Under multi-ship contracts, construction times have been reduced by 8–11 months.

Funding for these plans is expected to come from the US defense budget for fiscal year 2027, which totals $1.5 trillion. Of that, $65.8 billion is allocated for shipbuilding as part of the Golden Fleet initiative announced by Donald Trump.

He also noted that the US faces challenges beyond naval shipbuilding, particularly in constructing icebreakers. At present, the country has only one heavy icebreaker, and new vessels of this type are being built with significant delays.

For this reason, Finland, currently one of the world’s leading icebreaker builders, has been selected to construct such vessels for the United States in cooperation with local companies.

As a result, in October 2025, US President Donald Trump and Finnish President Alexander Stubb approved a memorandum of understanding on building icebreakers for the US Coast Guard.