Time to make nation's shipyards, merchant marine great again

摘要

For almost 50 years, beginning in the late 1930s, our government actually helped get U.S.-flag merchant ships built, utilizing the Construction Differential Subsidy (CDS) program. The CDS covered up to 50 percent of the additional cost to build ships in a U.S. shipyard instead of a foreign yard. The money was paid by the U.S. Maritime Administration (MarAd) directly to shipyards and/or shipowners, and was only allowed to go toward the construction of U.S.-flag ships in the international trade. Between the end of World War Ⅱ and the early 1980s, about 250 U.S.-flag tankers, containerships and break-bulk cargo vessels were built in the United States using CDS funds, with tens of thousands of citizens owing their livelihoods to this government program.