"There's a closed plant in Philadelphia. There's a closed Navy shipyard in Long Beach. And there are a couple of others," Emanuel said. "We wanted to see if Mitsubishi and other Japanese companies would be interested in potentially investing and reopening one of those shipyards and being part of building Navy, commercial and Coast Guard ships."
Emanuel is advocating for the use of Japanese private shipyards to conduct maintenance, repairs and overhauls of U.S. warships. Initially it would involve ships deployed to Japan, but eventually could be expanded to ships ported in the U.S.
He pointed to the strategic and industrial value of such a move. "It keeps ships in theater so that we don't lose time on the travel back and forth from the United States when it comes to repair work. The repair work being done here would relieve pressure on American shipyards so they are building new ships," he said.
But while quick repairs on damages suffered through deployment are allowed, like the Big Horn at Mitsubishi, U.S. law prohibits U.S.-based ships to undergo full-scale overhaul, repair or maintenance at a shipyard outside the U.S. or Guam. Changing such a law -- put in place to protect U.S. jobs -- may face headwinds, especially in an election year.
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Del Toro told the leaders: "There are numerous former shipyard sites around the [U.S.] which are largely intact and dormant. These are ripe for redevelopment as dual-use construction facilities for both warships, like Aegis destroyers, as well as high value chain commercial vessels, such as the ammonia gas carriers that will enable the global transition from fossil fuels to green energy sources like hydrogen," the Navy said.
"Investment in dual-use shipyards in the United States will create good paying, blue collar and new-collar American jobs building the advanced ships that will protect and power the economy of tomorrow."
The press releases from the two Korean companies focused instead on the opportunity of providing repair services to U.S. ships in Korea.
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