As we said in our article Aircraft Carrier Imperialism in Il Programma Comunista, 1957

Always keeping in mind that we are abstracting from other basic differences in the production systems prior to capitalism and capitalist imperialism are most notably distinguished by that fact that one was manifested in state structures that had a basis in territories and land, while the other emerged on the historical stage above all as world domination founded on naval hegemony and therefore on the domination of the great ocean trade routes. In the slave production system a state power that enjoyed land-based military superiority could play an imperialist role; under capitalism, on the other hand, which is the mode of production that has led to unprecedented levels of commodity production and expanded beyond the limits of credibility the phenomena of mercantilism that had already been stirred up in the preceding modes of production, imperialism is connected with naval supremacy, which today means naval-air supremacy.

Capitalist imperialism is above all hegemony on the world market. In order to conquer this hegemony, however, it is not enough to possess a powerful industrial machine and a territory that ensures a supply of raw materials. What is needed is an immense navy and merchant fleet, that is, the means by which the great intercontinental trade routes can be controlled. For history shows that the succession in imperialist supremacy is strictly linked, in the regime of capitalist mercantilism, to the succession in naval supremacy.

A familiar story is playing out across the world’s oceans. The preeminent world imperialism, decayed and overstretched, is struggling to maintain its naval supremacy. Amid the developing overproduction crisis, across the world the United States and its sub-imperialisms are engaged in an active struggle with the China-Russia-Iran bloc over control of the planet’s maritime commercial networks. It is in this war on the seas that the decisive battles for global supremacy shall be waged. Already the planet’s oceans are increasingly the site of competing naval fleets exercising their contesting claims of sovereign legal regulatory powers over vast tracts of waters, attempting to police foreign vessels belonging to the vast commercial fleets of the rival imperialism leading to rising tensions and escalating potential for military confrontation.

Accusations of state sponsored “lawlessness” on the high-seas and allegations of “piracy” are now exchanged. Contributing to the tensions is the Russian “shadow fleet” of potentially over a thousands ships increasingly backed by military force to evade Western sanctions, a massive Chinese shipbuilding industry facing a production glut, and a growing Chinese navy which threatens to outmatch the overstretched U.S. fleet in the South China Sea. As China begins to utilize its foreign bases in Djibouti to exert its influence over Africa and the Red Sea, it likewise has worked to utilize its industrial and financial monopolies to gain control of the Panama Canal for which the U.S. is presently actively contesting. Despite China’s relative underdog status for the time being, U.S. imperialism finds itself in an untenable position, completely dependent on foreign shipping industry not only for its commercial interests but also for its military logistics. It is because of this critical weakness that its current imperial ambitions of the U.S. have been drastically hemmed making any aggressive action against China, Panama or Greenland likely to be a catastrophe unless the U.S. can rapidly redevelop it’s naval merchant fleet and shipbuilding industry; however, its worsening financial situation makes such a rapid expansion of the vast infrastructure needed to redevelop it’s shipping industry an unlikely prospect anytime soon.

Rise of U.S. Naval Supremacy

Over the last 30 years, maritime commerce has expanded dramatically. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, global seaborne trade rose from approximately 4 billion metric tons in 1990 to over 12.3 billion tons in 2023, more than tripling in volume. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that maritime transport accounts for around 80% of global trade by volume and 70% by value, with over 50,000 merchant vessels registered across 150+ countries, employing more than 1.9 million seafarers worldwide. They also report that freight earnings from shipping total around $380 billion annually, roughly 5% of the value of global trade, making maritime transport not only a logistical necessity but a major component of the world economy. Additionally, in some extractive sectors, such as mining and oil, maritime shipping accounts for up to 76% of all trade value. In contrast to this growth, the United States has retreated from direct control of global maritime infrastructure.

After World War II, the U.S. was the unrivaled maritime superpower, dominating shipbuilding, port management, and commercial shipping. During the wars, the U.S. capitalist state, relatively unburdened by previous debts, was able to raise enormous funds for investment into shipbuilding, building 2,300 vessels for World War I and more than 5,500 vessels during World War II. The war destroyed European and Asian maritime powers who emerged saddled with wartime debts and unable to fully redevelop, while the U.S. shipbuilding boom, stimulated by wartime state spending, left thousands of cargo ships and a vast logistical network. The dominance of the U.S. Navy ensured that both commercial shipping and military deployments remained under American domination. Through naval dominance, bilateral port agreements, and control of key chokepoints, the U.S. integrated these laws and agencies into a broader imperialist framework that shaped the postwar maritime order to ensure the total dominance of U.S. finance capital and its commercial monopolies against potential competitors like in Europe and Asia.

After World War II, the U.S. Merchant Marine emerged as the backbone of American commercial shipping and military logistics. Though composed of privately owned, civilian-operated ships, the fleet was heavily subsidized, regulated, and mobilized by the state, forming a strategic auxiliary to the U.S. Navy. Much of the wartime-built tonnage, over 2,000 surplus vessels, was transferred to private companies, which continued to operate under U.S. flag with labor drawn from unionized hiring halls. The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 ensured that U.S. cargo was carried on U.S. crewed ships, and that the fleet could be requisitioned in times of war. In practice, most U.S. shipping after the war was organized within this system, blending private ownership with state oversight and a labor force organized through maritime unions.

Sailors Unions

Before World War II, U.S. sailors’ unions were already among the most militant and internationally minded segments of the labor movement. Defensive organizations like the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific (SUP) and the newly formed National Maritime Union (NMU) broke with conservative craft unionism and organized across lines of race, skill, and rank, embracing a combative, industrial union model. These unions led hard-fought strikes, and aligned with broader CIO efforts to build class-wide solidarity. Their ranks included many communist and socialist militants over the years who rejected segregation and imperialist war. Yet, with the outbreak of World War II, the communist party leadership within many of these unions, following the degenerated Communist Party USA’s line after 1941, chose to subordinate the class interests of maritime workers to the national war effort under Moscow’s Popular Front initiative, urging sailors to collaborate with government and employers in the name of anti-fascism. As a result, union leadership often suppressed strike activity, discouraged confrontation, and promoted unity with the capitalist state under Roosevelt’s New Deal program, believing that their loyalty would secure gains after the war.

This strategy proved disastrous. Merchant mariners suffered the highest casualty rate of any service with 1 in 27 perishing. The wartime promises of improved conditions, job security, and recognition were broken. Thousands of merchant mariners were laid off in the immediate postwar years, union hiring halls came under attack, and leftist leadership was purged under the guise of national security. The Coast Guard’s loyalty screening program, supported by the FBI and federal authorities, revoked seamen’s papers based on political beliefs and union activity. While the rank and file grew increasingly militant in response, union leadership, particularly those following the misleaders in the Stalinized Communist Party USA, remained bound by their wartime commitment to national unity, leaving them unprepared for the class upsurgence that followed.

The rising cost of living and simmering feelings of betrayal culminated in a wave of postwar maritime strikes, the most significant being the 1946 national maritime strike, involving over 100,000 workers from the NMU, SUP, Marine Firemen’s Union, and others. These strikes demanded wage increases, and job security amid rising layoffs and privatization. Their actions were part of a broader postwar labor upsurge but were met with intense repression, especially as Cold War anti-communism escalated. The 1947 SUP strike and solidarity actions with the ILWU’s 1948 West Coast port strike further deepened their confrontation with employers in their state. It was largely in response that the government passed anti-labor legislation like the Taft-Hartley Act. The implementation of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and the binding of the unions to the interests of the capitalist state, combined with the rise of containerization in the 1960s - 70s, U.S. sailor unions experienced a slow but steady erosion in power that culminated in the Reagan-era offensive of the 1980s. The period from the late 1940s to the early 1980s marked a transition from developing militancy and power of organized maritime labor to its near-total defeat.

Decline of U.S. Shipping At the Onset of the Overproduction Crisis

The attack on U.S. sailors’ unions and the turn toward foreign shipping were inseparable from the broader reorganizing of global capitalism and the offensive on the working class that began in the 1970s and intensified in the 1980s. Both were key components of U.S. capital’s strategy to restore profitability & overcome its emerging overproduction crisis. To fully take advantage of hyper-exploited Chinese workers, domestic consumer demand had to be increased and cheap commodities made more accessible. Thus the retail sector was expanded, industrial manufacturing and shipping offshored and delegated to countries who could offer more cheaply exploited proletarians.

As reported by the Brookings Institution and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, return on capital in finance and services far outpaced manufacturing and transport by 1985 with the average return on financial investment 12–14%, compared to 3–5% in U.S. industrial shipping. Thus, Wall Street investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley exited shipping ownership and redirected capital toward port privatization deals, foreign shipping equities and bonds, maritime trade finance and derivatives. This process was helped along with the development of containerization and other logistics and communications technologies that revolutionized global shipping by drastically reducing costs and transportation time. These innovations allowed for a rapid increase in the volume of global maritime commerce while simultaneously decreasing the amount of wage-labor required. High fixed costs for U.S. shipping due to union wages and benefits (U.S. maritime crew costs were 5–8 times higher than foreign crews) made them less competitive on a global scale. With U.S. naval superiority guaranteeing imperial dominance, an abundance of more profitable investment opportunities available for capital, and a need to obtain lower shipping costs to access larger super-profits this shift was in the interest of the national capital accumulation at the time which always searches and finds the best rate of returns.

As such, regulations like the Federal Maritime commission that mandated U.S. labor and operated ships for commerce had become a restraint to U.S. capital’s profit rates. Thus the capitalist class in the period of the Reagan administration made the choice to sack these regulations as they did with many others. Thanks to these shifts, companies like Microsoft, Nike, Apple were able for decades to rake in super-profits, becoming the most powerful and profitable corporations on earth. Yet, these gains were underwritten by transferring a section of the profits to foreign-flagged carriers and global shipping cartels. Just as delegating manufacturing to China allowed its developing bourgeoisie to elevate its imperial might, the same was true of the regional capitals who had delegated to them the duties of shipping for the financial center of world imperialism.

As U.S. carriers declined, foreign carriers dominated, especially Maersk (Denmark), eventually COSCO (China), Hapag-Lloyd (Germany), and Evergreen (Taiwan). U.S. finance capital didn’t wholly lose out, it invested in them. Reflecting the complicated balance of power between regional capital power blocks and the relationship between dominant and subordinate capitals, today, major U.S. institutional investors (BlackRock, Vanguard, JPMorgan) own substantial, while by no means controlling, shares in Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, and ZIM Integrated Shipping Services. The result is that U.S. finance capital, while it has profited from its investment in the firms, has lost total control over this critical industry giving leverage to its subordinate imperialisms to use as a tool in their own constant quest for independence and accumulation at the best rate. Today, fewer than 200 U.S.-flagged commercial ships remain in international trade, and unionized maritime jobs are a fraction of what they once were.

U.S. Finance vs the Foreign Shipping Cartels

Since the 1980s, the United States has steadily ceded control of its maritime shipping industry to foreign capital, culminating in today’s near-total dominance by a handful of foreign-owned shipping cartels. As of the end of 2024, three major shipping alliances, comprised of companies like Maersk (Denmark), MSC (Switzerland), COSCO (China), and CMA CGM (France), controlled approximately 90% of the U.S. containerized shipping trade. These cartels set freight rates, allocate vessel space, and effectively control access to the vast majority of U.S. ports. With fewer than 200 U.S.flagged ships left in operation out of a global fleet of over 40,000, and only 0.13% of the world’s cargo ships built in the United States, the U.S. now relies overwhelmingly on foreign-controlled capacity for both commercial trade and military logistics.

The consequences of this dependence became strikingly clear during the economic crisis that ensued in 2020, when foreign carriers, flush with state support and artificially propped up demand, hiked shipping rates on some routes by as much as 1,000%, raking in $190 billion in profits in 2021 alone, according to maritime financial. Meanwhile, they rejected U.S. agricultural exports, leaving food to rot on American docks as they rushed empty containers back to Asia to capture more profitable cargoes. This sparked major conflicts with American agribusiness giants like Tyson Foods, who had already demanded federal intervention into the shipping alliances as early as 2016. In 2017, U.S. regulators launched a price-fixing investigation into the top 20 container carriers, an effort that ended without charges, despite mounting pressure. As a result, sectors like agriculture, retail, and manufacturing have been forced to absorb soaring logistics costs while remaining hostage to foreign carriers’ capacity decisions.

U.S. finance capital, which once supported the dismantling of the domestic shipping industry in favor of leaner, offshore supply chains, is now struggling to reassert control over maritime logistics. It finds its larger imperial interests hemmed in by the commercial power of rivals and even its subordinate blocks who it cannot totally dominate without these industrial tools. As such, investment firms such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Brookfield have poured capital into port infrastructure, container leasing firms, and logistics platforms, but they do not own or control the ships themselves. Efforts to diversify port access or expand U.S.-flagged shipping has met stiff resistance from the entrenched cartels and their allies in European and Asian governments. The U.S. pays foreign companies to ensure access to their own supply chain in wartime. The Maritime Security Program (MSP), which pays Maersk over $5.3 million per ship annually to provide vessels for U.S. military use, underscores the dependency. Meanwhile, if any major carrier, especially Maersk or COSCO, were to withdraw from U.S. trade routes due to political disputes or sanctions, the gap could not be filled by domestic or allied alternatives, given the lack of American shipbuilding capacity and crew availability.

The implications of this industrial weakness are dire for U.S. imperialism. In November 2024, the U.S. Navy was forced to decommission 17 support vessels due to a shortage of qualified civilian mariners. At current capacity, the U.S. could only field about 15 fuel tankers in the event of a major Pacific conflict, far short of the 100+ tankers needed for sustained operations. The U.S. now depends on shipping cartels whose vessels are flagged in foreign ports, crewed by non-U.S. nationals, and managed according to profit motives and foreign policy considerations beyond American control. Without a national merchant fleet or shipbuilding base, and with finance capital likely structurally incapable of reversing this decline, American imperial logistics now find themselves stuck between a rock and hard place. Thus it has once again turned to its allies among union leaders for support in its efforts against the foreign capitals, raising the banner of the infamous national interest.

Dockworker Unions & The Proclaimed National Interest

Boss-linked and opportunist Longshore union leaders in the United States, in both the ILWU on the West Coast and the ILA on the East and Gulf Coasts, have deepened their alignment with the bourgeois state in a nationalist front to reclaim U.S. ports from foreign-controlled shipping interests in recent years. In April 2025, the ILWU’s Coast Longshore Division formally urged the U.S. Trade Representative to impose a “land-border fee” on cargo routed through Mexican or Canadian entry points, explicitly designed to direct more shipping through American ports and bolster domestic maritime infrastructure. Both unions’ leadership have also affirmed their commitment not to interfere with military or arms shipments, including those bound for Gaza, reinforcing the function of the labor aristocrats as extensions of U.S. bourgeois national security policy. During the pivotal 2024 East and Gulf Coast longshore strike, both Vice President Harris and former President Trump publicly backed dockworkers in their demand that U.S. ports be prioritized over foreign carriers, exemplifying how opportunist elements in union leadership align themselves with imperialist policy which in turn they present to workers as an advantageous policy earned in common struggle with the bourgeois exploiters, when in reality is nothing but smoke mirrors and pathetic cowardice bought at a small price for the capitalist class.

This critical position within the production process and the support of U.S. bourgeoisie who hopes to bind the port workers to their cause amid the escalating inter-imperialist rivalry allowed the good gains achieved by dockworkers. In their 2024–25 contract, East Coast ILA longshoremen secured a wage increase of 62% over six years, with base pay rising from approximately $39 to $63 per hour, enabling many to earn over $200,000 annually with overtime, more than double the national average wage of $28.34 per hour. Thus we can see how in critical sectors the U.S. bourgeoisie is forced to pay off workers, binding them to the national project. While it inversely demonstrates the bourgeois’ own vulnerability should workers manage to break with opportunist and boss-linked leadership and join the wider working class in struggling for establishing the united front for the class union.

Rising Chinese Naval Powers

China operates a vast merchant fleet, comprising over 5,600 vessels with a total cargo capacity of around 270 million tons, ranking it as the second-largest merchant fleet in the world, just behind Greece. Alongside this, China has rapidly expanded its influence over global port infrastructure. It now builds, manages, or operates more than 100 commercial ports across 63 countries, with seven of the world’s ten busiest ports located in China itself. This civilian maritime network also lays the groundwork for potential logistical support to Chinese naval forces, as these global port assets could eventually serve military functions such as resupply or ship maintenance. Much of this maritime expansion has occurred through direct government support and strategic planning.

Chinese shipyards simultaneously produce both commercial and naval vessels, using shared infrastructure, labor, and technological expertise. According to projections from the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, China is on track to field 475 warships by 2035, compared to about 310 for the United States. A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes that in 25 of 28 historical conflicts, the side with the larger fleet emerged victorious, largely due to its ability to absorb losses while maintaining combat effectiveness. While the U.S. Navy still holds an edge in terms of quality, especially in the number of high-capability destroyers, with 73 American destroyers compared to China’s 42, China is catching up.

China also benefits from a geographic advantage. It is primarily focused on projecting naval power in the South China Sea, allowing it to concentrate its fleet regionally. In contrast, the U.S. Navy remains stretched across multiple global theaters. While military simulations suggest China would suffer higher losses in a hypothetical conflict with the United States, it is believed to have the capacity to endure those losses and sustain combat operations, posing a strategic challenge to U.S. naval supremacy.

The Shadow Fleets & The Shipping Glut

Russia’s rapidly growing “shadow fleet” is not only a tool for circumventing Western oil sanctions it has also become a critical mechanism for alleviating the global overproduction crisis in shipping production. With estimates ranging from 343 to over 1,600 vessels, the fleet primarily consists of aging, second-hand tankers bought from Western and particularly Greek shipowners. These vessels, often decades old, rusting, uninsurable, and flagged under countries such as Gabon, Comoros, or the Cook Islands, carried as much as 53% of Russia’s seaborne oil exports in early 2025. Their reintegration into global trade through sanctions evasion has created a secondary shipping economy where devalued tonnage, no longer viable in the main circuits of capitalist maritime trade, is repurposed, relieving pressure from a system plagued by chronic overproduction and collapsing freight rates.

The crisis of overcapacity is measurable and severe. In 2023, the global shipbuilding order book for new ship production stood at 27% of the total fleet tonnage, a dramatic rise from just 8% in 2020, despite flat or declining demand for new shipping carrying capacity. Global container freight rates have dropped over 80% since their 2021 peak, and LNG carrier rates fell by 70% year-on-year in late 2024. Major trade corridors have contracted under the weight of U.S.- China tensions, regional conflicts like the Red Sea blockade, and protectionist measures. This glut has left older ships redundant, prompting Greek shipowners, who control nearly 20% of global deadweight tonnage, to offload hundreds of aging tankers to anonymous shell firms in Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the Marshall Islands, many of which have reappeared in the Russian fleet.

Despite nominal sales, Greek capital still exerts control over this fleet through shadow management structures. Firms like Minerva Marine and Dynacom have been shown by Reuters and Follow the Money investigations to continue managing tankers carrying Russian Urals crude. Using flag-of-convenience registries and low-wage crews from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Ukraine, Greek shipping interests maintain profitability in a glutted market while evading legal liability. The shadow fleet thus acts as a circuit through which surplus capital and labor, otherwise unprofitable in core markets, are cheaply reabsorbed, exemplifying how capitalist crisis generates opportunities for speculative accumulation in peripheral, semi-legal zones of commerce.

Sanctions enforcement has intensified, with the U.S. Treasury sanctioning 183 vessels in January 2025, and the EU and UK banning 342 tankers in their 17th sanctions package. According to Brookings, 264 out of 343 monitored vessels have been designated by at least one Western authority, with nearly half facing multiple overlapping sanctions. This crackdown has triggered widespread deregistration of vessels, which now increasingly operate without flags or under opaque registries to avoid detection. In effect, Western enforcement has amplified the shadow fleet’s demand for marginal, untraceable ships, vessels deemed too old, risky, or inefficient for mainstream trade, but ideal for clandestine sanctions circumvention.

In response, Western powers have initiated a broad militarization of sanctions policing. NATO-aligned states have begun surveillance, interdiction, and boarding operations against suspect tankers. In May 2025, Polish forces intercepted a shadow fleet vessel performing irregular maneuvers near an undersea cable between Poland and Sweden, redirecting it to a Russian port. Finnish patrols have deterred sabotage attempts by flag-of-convenience tankers, while NATO’s “Baltic Sentry” mission now regularly boards vessels in high-risk zones. The UK-led Nordic Warden system, operated by the Joint Expeditionary Force, integrates AI-based vessel tracking and naval drones to monitor activity across 22 maritime zones in the North and Baltic Seas, signaling a new model of digitalized maritime policing.

These enforcement efforts have prompted increasingly assertive Russian naval responses. Russian warships were observed escorting tankers in the Gulf of Finland, and an Estonian-NATO boarding attempt in May 2025 on the flagless tanker Jaguar resulted in Russian air force intervention. Moscow now accuses NATO of “piracy” and defends its fleet as sovereign property, while quietly ramping up naval spending. The “Maritime Security Belt 2025” exercises between Russia and China, explicitly aimed at defending shipping lanes from “piracy”, underscore how sanctions enforcement has contributed to a geopolitical feedback loop- capitalist overproduction of ships generates a shadow economy; Western policing of this economy provokes confrontation; and the global seas become militarized arenas of imperialist rivalry where economic crisis and geopolitical antagonism converge.

The Red Sea and the Suez Canal

The Red Sea, a critical artery for global commerce, accounting for nearly 30% of container traffic and vital oil shipments, has faced unprecedented disruption in recent years. Since late 2023, Iran-aligned Houthi insurgents in Yemen have launched hundreds of drone and missile assaults on merchant vessels transiting the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and adjacent waters. As a result, global shipping giants like Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have rerouted at least 20% of Asia–Europe container traffic around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, extending voyages by 10 days, increasing fuel consumption, emissions, and insurance costs, while also halving traffic through the Suez Canal. Egypt consequently lost approximately $7 billion in 2024 canal revenues, around 60% below pre-crisis levels.

The Houthis maintain strong connections with Iran who supplies drones, missiles, and financial support. Iranian oil exports, more than 90% of which go to China, have fueled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s proxy operations, including support for the Houthis. Beijing, while officially condemning Houthi attacks in UN forums, has refrained from actively supporting U.S. military measures and abstained from critical Security Council votes. China’s military presence in Djibouti, home to its first overseas base built as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, provides strategic proximity to Houthi-controlled routes.

Between late 2023 and mid-2025, Houthi attacks resulted in over 60 merchant vessels being directly targeted, with a dozen suffering damage or sinking. Casualties included at least three sailors killed and 20 crew evacuated due to severe injuries. In response, the U.S. Navy, backed by a multinational coalition under Operation Prosperity Guardian, deployed over 30 ships and expended roughly $1.5 billion in munitions Despite intercepting dozens of missiles and drones, the U.S. struggled to fully secure the route. In early 2025, U.S. and British airstrikes comprising over 1,000 sorties and attacks targeted Houthi launch sites at Ras Isa and Saada.

The sudden surge in Houthi missile and drone attacks in early 2025 posed increasing threats to both Saudi oil infrastructure and vulnerable European shipping routes. By mid-2025, Houthi forces had launched over 120 attacks since the start of the year, marking a 400% increase compared to the previous year. Thus, European merchant traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb declined nearly 75%, prompting rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope and driving freight rates and insurance costs significantly higher. In response the U.S. significantly expanded Operation Prosperity Guardian, increasing its naval presence from an initial 2–3 vessels in late 2024 to a peak of 8 warships by March 2025. As daily air patrols and precision strikes targeted Houthi radar systems, drone launch sites, and suspected arms depots it was coordinated closely with Saudi military intelligence, which provided real-time surveillance, targeting support, and regional base access.

This U.S. escalation also served to counter European strategic autonomy ambitions, as seen in the launch of Operation Aspides. France, Italy, and Spain rejected U.S. command authority and initiated Aspides on February 19, 2024, under an entirely EU-led command structure with six warships, aerial reconnaissance, and ~130 staff. Funded at roughly €17 million ($17.8 million) through February 2026, Aspides has escorted over 640 ships, providing close protection to around 370, but its purely defensive mandate banned any offensive strikes. U.S. officials publicly praised the EU mission for boosting maritime security yet emphasized that its role was complementary and subordinate to U.S strategy, to "deconflict and coordinate defensive operations", ensuring that Europe contributes more without undermining U.S. dominance. This balance allowed Washington to present a façade of allied solidarity while maintaining operational leadership, a posture that was pivotal in solidifying Trump’s May summit with Riyadh, which secured $600 billion in promised Saudi investment, including $142 billion in U.S. arms sales, conditional on continued U.S.-led security guarantees over the Gulf’s trade arteries.

Just prior to the summit in May 2025, an Oman-mediated ceasefire secured safe passage for U.S. and allied merchant ships but explicitly excluded Israeli-linked vessels. Israel, led by Defense Minister Israel Katz, denounced this as a “moral and strategic betrayal”, asserting it must “defend itself independently” and warning of unilateral military measures to protect its maritime interests, demonstrating cracks in Israel’s relationship with the U.S. who in turn wishes to curb its potential independence as an independent regional imperialism.

Since 2008, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has maintained a permanent escort presence in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, initially under the banner of anti-piracy operations. This presence deepened with the opening of China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017, strategically located near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical chokepoint for maritime trade between the Indian Ocean and Europe. The Djibouti base serves as both a logistical hub and a projection platform for China’s expanding global naval reach, directly supporting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has funneled over $155 billion in Chinese loans and infrastructure investments into East Africa alone. During the Houthi shipping crisis, Chinese-flagged vessels remained untouched by Houthi attacks, the product of China’s tacit alignment with Iran and its influence over Houthi decision-making, allowing Beijing to secure its commercial interests without military escalation. Refusing to join the U.S.-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, China instead deployed PLAN task groups, often consisting of two warships and a replenishment ship, to protect its own and allied shipping, particularly vessels tied to Chinese state-owned enterprises, logistics firms, and Russian cargo lines. These patrols safeguard not only trade routes but also the deepening interests of Chinese finance capital in Africa, including port infrastructure in Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia’s access corridor, which are vital to China’s strategy of securing supply chains, export markets, and debt-leveraged political influence across the continent.

The U.S. Conquest of the Panama Canal

In March 2025, a proposed $22.8 billion acquisition was announced by BlackRock, via its Global Infrastructure Partners division and the Italian Aponte family’s Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), aiming to purchase 43 port terminals worldwide from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, including two strategically critical terminals at both ends of the Panama Canal. The deal marked a significant attempted reassertion of U.S. finance capital’s control over key global shipping routes, serving the logistical and strategic interests of American industrial and financial monopolies amid intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry. Although Chinese state media condemned the planned sell-off as “treason”, CK Hutchison, under billionaire Li Ka=shing, has long maintained a posture of pragmatic independence from Beijing, even while its port holdings were pivotal to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. As of mid-2025, however, the deal remains in regulatory limbo, with China’s State Administration for Market Regulation opening an antitrust review in April and warning that the transaction cannot proceed without official approval. Despite this, the BlackRock-MSC initiative, which also targets terminals in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, is widely seen as a strategic counter-move by U.S. imperialism to roll back expanding Chinese maritime influence and reestablish dominance over global logistics infrastructure.

At the same time, Maersk had taken countermeasures. The Danish carrier controlling 14.3% of global container ship capacity across 672 vessels acquired the Panama Canal Railway Company as a crucial rail link that provides logistical leverage over canal transit. Maersk, a joint stock company with majority shares in the hands of Danish and European finance, represents the interests and ambitions of European imperialism ever yearning for a return to old glory. Maersk thus enters the game of imperial intrigue in Panama both to secure its profits and military interests of Danish-European imperialism. Maersk also remains a key industrial instrument in the U.S. Maritime Security Program, which transports the military’s equipment around the world, earning $5.3 million per vessel annually to support U.S. war logistics. Because its ships call at two dozen major U.S. ports that rely on Maersk it could cripple potential U.S. military operations in Greenland or the Arctic if it blocked shipping or logistics as the foreign-owned fleet remains vital to U.S. military logistic operations. Thus, it has strategically maneuvered to hamper and gain leverage over U.S. imperialism aspirations of conquering Greenland which remains in control of Denmark.

The announcement of the Blackrock deal in Panama, came amid a campaign of militaristic threats from the Trump administration. The brigandry bore fruits in April 2025, as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Washington had reached a “framework agreement” with the Panamanian government granting toll-free and priority passage for U.S. naval vessels through the Panama Canal, a move justified as necessary for “hemispheric stability”. As part of the agreement, Panama allowed an increase in the presence of U.S. military advisors and security contractors at Tocumen Air Base and Rodman Naval Station, officially designated for “joint maritime logistics and disaster response”. However, local media and opposition leaders characterized the deployment as a de facto return of U.S. troops, sparking mass protests in Panama City involving thousands of demonstrators opposing foreign military encroachment and calling the deal a betrayal of national sovereignty. Despite the domestic protests and unable to resist the goliath of the U.S. Panama began unwinding its economic relationship with China, including formally withdrawing from the Belt and Road Initiative.

The Attempt at Rebuilding the U.S. Shipping Industry

In response to the crippling deficiency of the U.S. shipping industry, the U.S. has launched an aggressive maritime reform agenda. A revived Shipbuilding Office, established via executive order, aims to rebuild U.S. yards and reduce reliance on foreign-built tonnage. Concurrently, the administration rolled out port docking fees, $50 to $120 per ton, targeting Chinese-built or Chinese-flagged vessels, beginning October 2025, and backed these measures with the introduction of the bipartisan “SHIPS for America Act”, which while still being considered, offers tax credits, direct contracts, and sets firm targets to build 250 ships in ten years. Beyond regulation, the U.S. has pursued bilateral shipbuilding collaboration with its subordinates. Huntington Ingalls Industries signed an MOU with South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in April 2025 to jointly build commercial and defense vessels. South Korea, now a top-three global shipbuilder, also sent delegations to Washington to negotiate trade and defense partnerships that may include shipbuilding content or technology transfers.

Despite these initiatives, structural problems persist. BlackRock and MSC now are on the verge of controlling key maritime chokepoints, but they lack ownership of ships or crews or the essential machinery of maritime power, leaving the U.S. military to still be reliant on foreign-flagged logistics networks. Maersk’s dual role as private carrier and Pentagon contractor magnifies this paradox: if Danish state policy diverges, U.S. operations could be disrupted. While collaborative ventures with South Korea and others aim to expand industrial capacity, they remain far from restoring a full U.S. maritime fleet. In sum, America’s strategy to reclaim maritime sovereignty is reshaping policy, capital, and alliances but continues to fall short of rebuilding the industrial backbone necessary to maintain naval dominance and end reliance on this critical industry dominated by the interests of increasingly antagonistic sub-imperialisms.

For a successful revival, America must expand maritime academies, recruit thousands more sailors, and rebuild shipyards, tasks complicated by a labor-ready population that has shrunk from 50,000 in 1960 to fewer than 10,000 today. Industry experts warn that deep-seated structural issues ranging from aging infrastructure and cost overruns to regulatory red tape must be resolved before increased production can materialize.

The situation is increasingly paralleling that of the decline of British maritime power after World War II which was swift and decisive. At the end of the war, Britain still possessed the largest merchant fleet in the world, with over 30% of global tonnage under its flag. However, the postwar era brought imperial contraction, austerity, and deindustrialization. The United Kingdom faced mounting debts in maintaining its overseas colonies and domestic welfare programs while simultaneously losing market share in shipping to newer, lower-cost competitors. In the 1960s, the Shipbuilding Industry Board, created under the 1967 Shipbuilding Act, sought to consolidate British yards to improve competitiveness; however, despite these reforms, British shipbuilding faced stiff global competition especially from subsidized Japanese and Korean firms. By the 1980s, British shipyards had lost the capacity to compete on a global scale, and by 2012, the UK controlled less than 1% of global merchant shipbuilding reflecting the total decline of its former imperial might.

Industry experts and official estimates suggest that reviving the U.S. shipping industry to meet global competitiveness and military needs would require hundreds of billions in sustained investment. A congressional-commissioned study and economic think tanks estimate the nation needs assured access to at least 1,300 commercially viable vessels to ensure strategic sealift capability and maintain that fleet in active rotation. Currently, the U.S. operates only about 80 oceangoing vessels for international commerce, compared to China’s approximately 5,500. To bridge this gap, the Maritime Administration (MARAD) requested $235 million for operations and training (with $151.5 million for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy) and $372 million for the Maritime Security Program, covering roughly 60 vessels in  2026. Additional grants include $20 million for shipyard infrastructure and $3.7 million for Title XI loan management.

The SHIPS for America Act, which is currently before Congress and included in “One Big Beautiful Bill”, proposes much larger funding levels: it mandates financial incentives like a 25% investment tax credit for shipyard modernization, a national Trust Fund for maritime development, and consistent multi=billion-dollar annual spending on vessel construction, repair, mariner workforce, and port infrastructure. Though precise totals vary, the Act’s proponents argue that full implementation would require at least $50-$100 billion over a decade, not including shipyard and academy modernization. In comparison, current appropriations sum to only around $600 million annually across MARAD programs far below the scale experts identify as necessary to rebuild a fleet, modernize yards, and train sufficient personnel. Critics, especially so-called “debt hawks”, oppose further expansive spending, arguing it adds to long-term obligations without robust offsetting revenue or entitlement reform. They call for transparent benchmarks and fiscal limits rather than open-ended maritime subsidies.

Thus the realities of a debt saddled U.S. imperialism, totally reliant on its declining military supremacy, confronts the reality that it is likely that it merely cannot afford the necessary expansion of it military fleets to keep up with the growing power of China and as such it must leverage its current strategic advantages to the maximum capacity now, escalating everywhere the risk of war or face it’s inevitable demise.