The annual tonnage produced by U.S. commercial shipbuilders has reached its lowest level in over 100 years. U.S. shipyards did not produce a single oceangoing hull for over half of the previous decade, despite the Jones Act being in place to prop up American shipbuilders. The lack of American ship production both hinders American international commerce and leaves it weak defensively. That defensive vulnerability is especially worrying because the year is 1935, and America is only a few years away from entering World War II.
Thankfully for the allies, when World War II increased the demand for American commercial and military ships, American ship-builders kept up. America’s peak

