Meet the fleets shaping the future generation; driver on visa charged; SHIPS Act
On Episode 836 of WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, Dooner is talking to Next Generation in Trucking's Lindsey Trent about the company's Career Catalyst award, which honors the fleets shaping our nation's future drivers. This recognition highlights fleets — both for-hire and private — that are creating meaningful career paths for young truck drivers, diesel technicians, warehouse associates and more.
Can we bring big ship building back to the USA? With all this trade war talk, Dredging Contractors of America's William Doyle talks about how ship building is essential to national security and balancing trade. We'll take a look at the SHIPS Act, the latest on the trade deals and how they're all tied together.
Plus, driver on visa charged in fatal wreck; does Jerome Powell need a SONAR account; and more.
Catch new shows live at noon EDT Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on FreightWaves LinkedIn, Facebook, X or YouTube, or on demand by looking up WHAT THE TRUCK?!? on your favorite podcast player and at 5 p.m. Eastern on SiriusXM's Road Dog Trucking Channel 146.Watch on YouTube
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The post Meet the fleets shaping the future generation; driver on visa charged; SHIPS Act | WHAT THE TRUCK?!? appeared first on FreightWaves.
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Walker said a more viable proposal could be a tariff hike on U.S.-flagged ships doing repair work in shipyards in China. The tariff could be an impetus for U.S. ships to be repaired in domestic shipyards. U.S. officials floated the idea of imposing a 200% duty for work carried out on many U.S.-flag ships at yards in 'countries of concern,' according to the SHIPS Act. 'I think that one of the possibilities is restricting U.S.-flagged Jones Act ships from doing ship repair in China, which they do, and that could be a first step,' Walker said. Of 80,000 U.S. port calls each year, only a very small percentage are currently by U.S.-registered ships. '[The U.S.] intentionally walked away from its shipbuilding capability in the 1980s … and to blame China for recognizing an opportunity and capitalizing on it, I think is the wrong cast,' Walker said. 'I would rather see us say, 'Well, look, China in the early 1990s is when they decided to become a shipbuilding nation.' In the last 35 years, they have become the dominant shipbuilding nation with about 60% of the order book. How they got there also needs to be recognized.' Watson said for various reasons — including cost and efficiency — many companies in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s decided to outsource shipbuilding to countries such as Japan and South Korea initially. 'I think what happened was they just said, 'Well, we can just sacrifice that industry and we can buy ships from Korea and Japan, because they're building fine ships over there, and use our open registries to help the world globalize even more and focus on military shipbuilding,' Watson said. 'Then the Cold War ended and we looked around and took our peace dividend, balanced the budget again, and realized we didn't have a commercial shipbuilding industry anymore. So we just stuck … with the plan to buy ships from Japan and Korea, and then I think China saw the opportunity.' Walker and Watson said maritime security not only impacts national security, it impacts energy security, environmental security, economic security and workforce development. 'We think we can lead the world, but we probably shouldn't basically give away our designs and our technology to the cheapest place in the world to build,' Watson said. 'I guess just going to my position on the USTR thing … some of the things that they're doing probably have a time and a place and maybe now is the time and the place to do it.' Watson said it's critical that the government produce programs to restore the maritime industry in the U.S. 'You've got to have a program that creates investment here,' Watson said. 'If you look at the CHIPS Act, for example, where you actually have an act of Congress instead of effectively an executive decision of an agency, then you can put in some provisions that are bankable. You can have companies invest in a legislative initiative with a lot more security that it won't flip in four years compared to an executive mandate, like a tariff or a penalty on Chinese shipping.' The ultimate goal the U.S. government should be looking for is bringing in more mariners and reinvigorating the country's industrial shipbuilding complex, Watson and Walker said. 'It's the ships that come first,' Watson said. 'Then that causes an interest in terminals and shipyards and everything else. So there's been a lot of talk about … 'We've got to be more involved in the Panama Canal, we've got to stop [China's] Belt and Road Initiative.' If we just had a robust marine industry, a ship-operating industry, if we had merchant mariners, if we had the lead on marine technology, we would naturally want to own the terminals and the ships and have stakeholdings in great shipyards to service our ships.' The post China's maritime lead a security threat, say 'Zero Point Four' authors appeared first on FreightWaves.
