Appendix - Other Testimony Against the Export Restrictions
Here’s the exhaustive list of other presenters who mentioned the export restrictions, with brief summaries of their testimony on the matter. Full transcripts for panels 1-7 are available here, and transcripts for panels 8-14 are available here.
Tropical Shipping (Panel 4): There was "little to no practical opportunity to build new vessels in the U.S." Building vessels in the U.S. requires "space and time"; "the U.S. Navy came out last week and said they're four years behind… building ships."
World Direct Shipping (Panel 4): “There's not many companies that flag U.S. because there's a shortage of U.S. mariners… If you told me I had to crew my vessels tomorrow with U.S. crews, we wouldn't be sailing. I don't know where we would find them.”
Canada Steamship Lines (Panel 5): "In 2023 we asked eight American shipyards to build us a new vessel. Of the eight American shipyards, and I want to make this clear, not a single one offered to put in a bid despite repeated calls and opportunities." Noted that the last American shipyard bid for their company was over 25 years ago.
American Apparel & Footwear Association (Panel 5): "U.S. flagged, operated, and built ships are just not available," the U.S. has only 182 flagged ships representing "only 0.4 percent of the global fleet of almost 40,000 ships."
Seaboard Marine (Panel 6): "U.S. built container ships have not been a viable option for us for some time."
North Florida Shipping (Panel 6): Building their needed vessel would cost $8-10 million in China, $12-15 million in Europe, but $45-50 million in the U.S., making U.S.-built vessels "five times more expensive" and "financially unfeasible.”
World Shipping Council (Panel 7): U.S. shipyards are "challenged by labor shortages", "a shortage of trained and certified mariners also constrains the ability to re-flagged foreign built vessels under the U.S. flag."
International Chamber of Shipping (Panel 7): "lead times from contract to delivery for a chemical tanker in the U.S. are expected to be in excess of ten years and could cost more than four times the amount of those built in China, Japan or Korea."
National Retail Federation (Panel 9): “The amount of money necessary to make the U.S. shipbuilding industry globally competitive is astronomical and doing so would also take decades. The costs to build a container, bulk, or other maritime vessel would be more expensive as a result of the escalating tariffs on key materials, such as steel, aluminium, and copper. It is unrealistic for the U.S. shipbuilding industry to make the substantial jumps necessary to meet the proposed actions and in the time frames proposed.”
American Petroleum Institute (Panel 14): “There are currently no U.S.-flagged, fully refrigerated LPG ships, nor are there any U.S.-built LNG carriers in service. This is also true for conventional crude oil tankers.”
American Chemistry Council (Panel 14): “the U.S. shipbuilding industry has never built a liquid chemical tanker, as the expected costs to build chemical tankers in the U.S. are four to five times higher than other countries. Even assuming the revitalization of U.S. commercial shipbuilding, we are unlikely to produce any of these vessels in the next decade, as they're the most complex and challenging to stay alive.