SEN TODD YOUNG: The hidden danger China’s ships could bring to our shores

Chinese vessels carry appliances, clothing, and household goods to our ports. But what if they also brought, without notice, missile launchers concealed in shipping containers? This is not merely a hypothetical question, but a possibility America’s leaders must prepare for.

As technology evolves, enterprising nations are getting creative about how to project power far away from their borders and shores. Just last year, Ukraine destroyed a third of Russia’s strategic-bomber force even though those aircraft were kept on protected bases deep in the heart of Russian territory.

How? They hid swarms of drones inside shipping containers carried on trucks and infiltrated Russia’s domestic transportation networks. Russia was clearly unprepared for a clever adversary to exploit its highways.

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The impact to Russia’s military power was striking, but the attack also exposed to the world the vulnerabilities inherent in everyday commerce.

That development should prompt American officials to consider what risks we face here in the United States. As a maritime nation protected by two oceans and friendly countries to our north and south, we’ve grown accustomed to a high level of safety. But we are also a major destination of global shipping, bringing most of the goods that we purchase every day to our shores.

A large percentage of those ships coming in and out of our ports are owned and operated by Chinese firms with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. This creates acute risk.

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Naval analysts confirm China is retrofitting cargo ships with deadly weapons – long range strike and surface-to-air missiles, drone launching systems, as well as radar and tracking systems.

What if one of these ships arrived in Houston, home to America’s largest port in terms of tonnage and one of the country’s economic hubs?

The "best" case scenario: our Intelligence Community would detect the weapons, enabling the Coast Guard to intercept and seize the Chinese ship. However, this could potentially require shutting down the port and halting trade and LNG exports worth billions.

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The far more alarming possibility: the armed Chinese cargo carriers slip into the Port of Houston undetected and launch devastating attacks on the port, destroying vital infrastructure and killing hundreds, and possibly many more.

The Port of Houston is home to the world’s largest petrochemical complexes and a quarter of America’s refining capacity. The explosions caused by a Chinese attack on the port would send clouds of carcinogens into the air and over nearby communities. Meanwhile, America’s energy supply would be devastated, causing painful shortages and draining the economy of millions of dollars a day.

This disaster could play out at any of our other major ports – Los Angeles, our hub for trans-Pacific trade, or Norfolk, Virginia, the East Coast’s deepest harbor and home to America’s largest naval base.

Neither of these situations are inevitable, but we must act now to rebuild America’s rusted Maritime Industrial Base and end our reliance on Chinese-flagged vessels. That is why I am working with congressional colleagues and the Trump administration to make American ships again.

The U.S. was once home to the world’s largest commercial fleet, numbering nearly 4,000 ships. But in the years following World War II, priorities shifted and international competition increased. Today, the United States manufactures a handful of commercial vessels per year while China builds over a thousand.

In total, the U.S. has fewer than 100 oceangoing commercial vessels. China has nearly 6,000, the largest fleet in the world. This imbalance is a tremendous risk, giving China control over global supply chains, economic levers to constrain American policy options, and, at worst, countless opportunities every day to sneak weapons into our cities.

What commercial shipping fleet we have is in disrepair. Our sealift capacity is diminished. America is in danger.

I am leading a bipartisan coalition in Congress that clearly sees the grave risks to our people and economy. We are working to achieve a revival of American shipbuilding. To accomplish this, we have written the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure and Security Act, or SHIPS Act. The bill, which I introduced in the Senate last year, will launch a new fleet of American-made ships.

The SHIPS Act will encourage the construction of new ships and shipyards through tax incentives. It will deliver deregulation and permitting reform to reduce costs and speed the delivery of new vessels. It also will modernize training programs at our maritime academies and recruit a new generation of mariners.

And the bill will establish a Maritime Security Trust Fund to finance these programs, plus an expansion of the U.S.-flagged international fleet to 250 ships by 2035.

We have a strong champion in President Trump, whose Maritime Action Plan is consistent with our bill, mobilizing the whole of government to restore America’s maritime dominance.

China is retrofitting its commercial ships into covert warships. The evidence is clear. So too is the risk of allowing these vessels to dominate global trade and fill our ports because we have no ships of our own.

But we have a plan to protect our ports and people, to build and launch a new fleet, manned by Americans mariners, flying the Stars and Stripes. Congress should pass the SHIPS Act without delay.