White House Opens US Navy Surface Combatants to Foreign Shipyards

President Trump signed a national security presidential memorandum on August 13, 2026, titled "Rebuilding the United States Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base," opening the construction of US Navy vessels to allied foreign shipyards. The document delegates to the Secretary of War the national security exemption written into the Burns-Tollefson amendment, the appropriations rider codified at 10 USC 8679 that has barred building Navy ships abroad since 1965.

Three vessel families are covered: surface combatants capable of anti-submarine and surface warfare, oilers for at-sea resupply, and roll-on/roll-off sealift ships. Overseas construction is capped at an initial run of up to two hulls per class, with all follow-on ships built in American yards through domestic supply chains. The Secretary must notify Congress of each national security determination and wait 30 days before a contract can be signed.

The memorandum calls the arrangement the "Finland Model," after the Coast Guard's Arctic Security Cutter order placed with Rauma Marine Constructions in June 2026. To qualify, a foreign builder must "simultaneously build a new shipyard in the United States or assume ownership or a majority equity position in an existing shipyard," hire an American workforce, license its proprietary techniques to US yards and move follow-on work stateside. Korean groups with existing US yard holdings are the most obvious candidates.

The gap being addressed is legible in the fleet itself. The United States Navy fields 77 active destroyers - 75 Arleigh Burke-class ships and two Zumwalts - with six more fitting out, nine on order and ten planned. Below them there is nothing: the only vessel carried as an active frigate is USS Constitution, commissioned in 1797. The Constellation class, meant to rebuild that tier, is down to one ship on order and one planned after years of design change. The escort work in between falls to 27 littoral combat ships of the Freedom and Independence classes, a type the Navy has been retiring well ahead of schedule.

That is the tier the memorandum targets. Within 90 days the Secretary of War must deliver a plan for "a new competitive acquisition approach for surface combatants with sufficient inherent capabilities to perform anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort duties." Parallel deadlines run at 60 days on reverting carrier catapults and arresting gear to steam and hydraulic systems, 90 days on a component repair center, and 120 days on standing up a fifth naval shipyard and on reforming Naval Sea Systems Command.

The catapult clause has drawn most of the early attention, since it would unwind the electromagnetic launch system fitted across the Gerald R. Ford class. The memorandum also cites planned growth of the fast-attack submarine fleet over the next two decades, currently resting on the Virginia class, without setting a numerical target.

None of it is a contract. The memorandum directs plans and delegates an exemption authority; the appropriations language itself sits with Congress, and the first test will be whether the 90-day surface combatant plan names a design.