THE us Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro has suggested to the CEO of AP Moller-Maersk Vincent Clerc to buy American-made ships to join Maersk's exclusively foreign-built fleet.
The unusual suggestion was made in a meeting in Denmark last week by Mr Del Toro to the CEO of the Danish shipping company, Mr Clerc, reports The Maritime Executive of Fort Lauderdale.
The call is in line with Mr Del Toro's attempt to attract allied help to 'renew the health of [America's] broader seapower ecosystem.'
Mr Del Toro has invited Korean shipbuilders to acquire or open shipyards in the US market, hoping to fix over-budget, behind-schedule naval shipbuilding programmes.
A signal of demand from a large private shipowner might spark business interest in modernizing American shipyards, he suggested.
'With some of the world's most technologically advanced shipbuilders already heeding our call to invest in integrated commercial and naval shipbuilding facilities in the United States, the next step in our maritime statecraft strategy is to attract the world's foremost commercial shipping firms to signal their demand for new ships built in American shipyards,' Secretary Del Toro said.
While meaningful for national defence, the move would be unusual for Maersk, and Mr Clerc has not commented publicly on Mr Del Toro's proposal.
The secretary's office said that Maersk's team would continue the discussion during a visit to the US in the weeks to come.
US-built boxships are typically used on domestic or partially domestic routes, where they are required, and all are below 4,000 TEU in size.
Maersk Line owns more than 330 cellular container ships and charters another 380 vessels, ranging in size up to 24,000 TEU. It has a US-flagged division, but this business unit operates foreign-built vessels, like other participants in the US Maritime Security Programme (MSP).
'Our calculus is that bringing a larger portion of the newbuild orderbooks of the world's biggest shipping firms to American shores in the coming years will offer significant returns to Navy shipbuilding and sealift,' said Mr Del Toro in a statement.
SeaNews Turkey
The unusual suggestion was made in a meeting in Denmark last week by Mr Del Toro to the CEO of the Danish shipping company, Mr Clerc, reports The Maritime Executive of Fort Lauderdale.
The call is in line with Mr Del Toro's attempt to attract allied help to 'renew the health of [America's] broader seapower ecosystem.'
Mr Del Toro has invited Korean shipbuilders to acquire or open shipyards in the US market, hoping to fix over-budget, behind-schedule naval shipbuilding programmes.
A signal of demand from a large private shipowner might spark business interest in modernizing American shipyards, he suggested.
'With some of the world's most technologically advanced shipbuilders already heeding our call to invest in integrated commercial and naval shipbuilding facilities in the United States, the next step in our maritime statecraft strategy is to attract the world's foremost commercial shipping firms to signal their demand for new ships built in American shipyards,' Secretary Del Toro said.
While meaningful for national defence, the move would be unusual for Maersk, and Mr Clerc has not commented publicly on Mr Del Toro's proposal.
The secretary's office said that Maersk's team would continue the discussion during a visit to the US in the weeks to come.
US-built boxships are typically used on domestic or partially domestic routes, where they are required, and all are below 4,000 TEU in size.
Maersk Line owns more than 330 cellular container ships and charters another 380 vessels, ranging in size up to 24,000 TEU. It has a US-flagged division, but this business unit operates foreign-built vessels, like other participants in the US Maritime Security Programme (MSP).
'Our calculus is that bringing a larger portion of the newbuild orderbooks of the world's biggest shipping firms to American shores in the coming years will offer significant returns to Navy shipbuilding and sealift,' said Mr Del Toro in a statement.
SeaNews Turkey
