Democrat Rep. Jared Golden (ME-CD2) urged U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer to crack down on ascendant Chinese shipbuilding in a letter on Monday, accusing the Chinese government of predatory practices that seek to undermine the U.S. industry.

“China’s discriminatory practices and cheating have forced U.S. shipbuilders, their suppliers, and workers to compete on an uneven playing field and have contributed to the decline of the U.S. shipbuilding industry,” said Rep. Golden.

“While China has poured hundreds of billions of dollars of state funding into its shipbuilding industry to insulate it from market forces, too many U.S. shipyards were forced to close their doors or compete for the few remaining contracts. As a result, the U.S. Navy estimates China’s shipbuilding capacity at roughly 232 times that of the United States,” he added.

Golden pointed to the Navy’s intelligence, suggesting that China’s shipbuilding capacity vastly outstrips that of the U.S., and that the communist country’s domination in logistical and maritime sectors poses a substantial national security threat.

The USTR published a report showing that the Chinese Communist Party has funded its shipping, maritime, and logistical industries with government subsidies for nearly 30 years and has maintained its dominance by placing restrictions on non-Chinese shipbuilders.

The U.S., according to Golden’s letter, has become reliant on Chinese maritime supremacy, with Americans shipping products “on vessels made in China, financed by state-owned Chinese institutions, owned by Chinese shipping companies, and reliant on global logistics infrastructure increasingly dominated by China.”

Chinese dominance in the shipbuilding industry appears even more concerning in light of a 2015 policy requiring all Chinese civilian ships to be built to meet certain military standards so that they could be commandeered by the Chinese Communist Party and used in the case of war.

Golden encouraged the USTR to implement the recommendations that it made in February to curtail Chinese maritime dominance.

Those measures include:

• Significant fees on Chinese operated vessels entering U.S. ports of up to $1 million per entrance or $1,000 per ton.
• Export requirements, increasing the percentage of U.S. exports that must be transported on U.S. made vessels.
• Restrictions on the use of Chinese maintained logistical information platforms that could pose a national security risk to the U.S, and
• Coordination with allies to suppress Chinese maritime supremacy.

Golden also proposed measures to prevent China from circumventing new restrictions by landing at Canadian or Mexican ports.

He urged the USTR to work with congress to codify anti-China policies.

Golden also requested that the USTR ensure that any fees collected from its proposed measures be reinvested into the U.S. maritime industrial base, investments sure to benefit Maine’s shipyards, such as Bath Iron Works.

Golden did not take any funding from Bath Iron Works or General Dynamics, the company that operates it, during his recent 2024 campaign.