Maritime Industry Stands with the President in Commitment to American Jobs and National Security

WASHINGTON (March 2, 2017) – The American Maritime Partnership (AMP) – the voice of the domestic maritime industry – today issued the following statement following President Trump’s remarks aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford in Newport News, VA.

“The American maritime industry stands with the President in his commitment to strengthen both economic and national security,” said Tom Allegretti, Chairman of the American Maritime Partnership. “As noted by the leaders of the U.S. Department of Defense, Navy, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Coast Guard, the ability of the nation to build and maintain a U.S. flagged feet is of significant national interest. And as every modern president has noted, the Jones Act is critical to maintaining the U.S. shipyard industrial base. The American maritime industry is here to answer the call to build American vessels that are American-crewed and American-owned to both fuel the economy and protect the nation.”

The U.S. shipyard industrial base in Virginia and across the nation is vital to America’s national and economic security.  Private U.S. shipyards build, repair, maintain and modernize the largest and most sophisticated Navy and Coast Guard vessels in the world and do the same for the nation’s 40,000 commercial vessels.  Across the country, the domestic maritime industry, supported by the Jones Act, sustains more than 478,000 jobs and has an annual economic impact of $92.5 billion according to a study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the Transportation Institute.  The industry also accounts for approximately $29 billion in annual wages and $10 billion in tax revenue each year.