2026年3月22日 / 美国东部时间下午7:45 / CBS新闻
随着美国军方在伊朗战争中处于高度戒备状态，国内正面临一个国家安全危机：美国造船业的现状。
美国的海军造船项目臃肿且进展缓慢，而商业造船几乎濒临消失。韩华拥有美国仅存的几家仍在建造大型商用货船的造船厂之一，但其主要造船厂位于韩国。虽然韩华在费城的造船厂每年推出约1艘船，但韩国韩华造船厂每周就能建造1艘。
韩华负责美国业务的最高执行官迈克尔·库尔特表示，美国不应该只从韩国购买所有船只，这是有原因的。
“这并不能解决问题。归根结底，造船是国家安全的必需品，”库尔特说。”美国需要能够保障自身的商业运输安全。我们需要能够出口本国的能源。”
为何美国造船业现状是一场国家安全危机
不在美国本土建造船只被视为既威胁经济安全，也威胁国家安全，例如，如果与中国发生冲突，中国可能会将其庞大的商船队武器化，从而切断美国与全球货物的联系。
造船业的停滞不前也影响了美国液化天然气产业。库尔特表示，美国是全球最大的天然气生产国，但却没有任何船只来运输天然气。《琼斯法案》（一项已有百年历史的法律）要求，在美国港口之间运输的任何货物都必须使用美国制造的船只。
迈克尔·库尔特与莱斯利·斯塔尔接受《60分钟》采访
由于没有美国制造的液化天然气运输船，美国只能通过外国承运人将液化天然气出口到30多个国家，但无法将其运往美国其他地区，据自由意志主义智库卡托研究所的贸易专家科林·格拉博说。
“你可能会想，’嗯，这似乎是个容易解决的问题。去建造一艘船，运输天然气就行了，’”格拉博说。”但问题在于成本计算不成立。如果你想在亚洲建造一艘这样的船，成本约为2.6亿美元；而在美国建造呢？大约需要10亿美元！”
本周，由于伊朗战争影响油价，特朗普总统暂时暂停了《琼斯法案》，以简化美国国内石油和天然气的运输。去年，他将解决造船危机列为国家优先事项，签署了一项行政命令，要求制定行动计划。
“没有任何总统比他更致力于加强美国海事力量，”白宫在3月向《60分钟》发表的声明中说。
美国造船业的崩溃
美国曾经是全球造船业的强国，但由于半个世纪的短视政策和忽视，该行业逐渐萎缩。
如今由韩华拥有的费城造船厂，曾经是美国实力和创新的象征。在那里建造的船只帮助美国在18世纪赢得独立，并在20世纪赢得二战。
而今天，它已成为美国工业衰退的象征，一个数十年落后于全球竞争对手的亏损企业。该厂至今仍在使用1942年的起重机。
韩华在2024年以1亿美元收购了费城造船厂，随后又投入1亿美元，并任命出生于得克萨斯州的韩裔美国人金大卫负责将该厂带入21世纪。该公司计划在费城投入50亿美元。其目标是最终在该厂每年制造20艘船。
推动美国造船业复苏的努力
为推动美国造船业复苏，韩华从韩国派遣了50名培训师到费城，帮助培训美国工人。美国造船厂长期面临熟练工人短缺的问题，包括焊工和管工，部分原因是这项工作既艰苦又危险。该厂设有一个为期三年的培训项目。
参与该项目的一名学员杰夫说，工作让他疲惫不堪，但他觉得这”很有成就感”，因为他感觉自己”参与了一项更大的事业”。
金大卫表示，两年内，该厂的劳动力将从目前的规模增长7000至10000人。人们还可以期待看到机器人和自动化设备。在韩国的造船厂，一排排机器人正在工作，而人工劳动力也在扩大。该厂同时培训400人，这远远超过了美国工厂同时只能培训20人的规模。
金大卫接受《60分钟》采访
库尔特表示，降低成本的方法是扩大生产规模。在韩华的韩国造船厂，同时建造9艘船。足球场大小的船体部件像乐高积木一样拼接在一起。
韩华韩国造船厂还建造军用舰艇，包括美国迫切需要的潜艇。韩华主动提出在美国建造潜艇，就像在韩国那样。
“美国的潜艇项目正在走向错误的方向，我们认为我们可以提供帮助，”库尔特说。
相互冲突的国家优先事项可能阻碍美国拯救造船业的努力
在韩国培训潜在美国工人的培训师需要获得签证才能来到美国。去年9月，美国移民和海关执法局突击搜查了佐治亚州的一家韩国电池厂，带走了300名韩国技术人员和工程师，他们被戴着手铐和镣铐带走，理由是涉嫌签证违规。
这在韩国引起了强烈反对。
“我们一直得到保证，我们的签证是合法的，我们的团队不会受到影响，”库尔特说。
格拉博表示，特朗普总统对移民执法的重视以及对外国工人签证的限制，阻碍了造船业的复苏努力。
“传统上，很多移民都愿意从事这类工作，”他说。”然而，我们却在背弃移民，采取更敌对的态度。”
总统还对钢材征收了50%的关税，而钢材是造船的主要原材料。
“这是特朗普政府的一个矛盾之处，”格拉博说。”我们人为地增加了美国造船的成本。”
尽管美国本土生产的钢材没有关税，但美国的钢铁生产商很可能会提高价格以匹配进口钢材的成本。
“这些都是以盈利为导向的企业，”格拉博说。
虽然格拉博认为美国应该直接从韩国购买并使用船只，但白宫仍致力于在美国本土制造船只。因此，去年当特朗普总统威胁要对韩国进口商品加征关税时，韩国总统转而提议投资1500亿美元振兴美国造船业，并承诺费城只是开始。
“毫无疑问，我们面临挑战和逆风，但我也认为我们正处于一个独特的时刻，”库尔特说。
The Hanwha Philly shipyard delivers around 1 ship a year. A South Korean Hanwha shipyard delivers 1 a week.
March 22, 2026 / 7:45 PM EDT / CBS News
With the U.S. military on high alert amid the Iran war, there’s a national security crisis closer to home: the state of the American shipbuilding industry.
The nation’s naval shipbuilding program is bloated and slow, and commercial shipbuilding is near non-existent. Hanwha, which owns one of the only U.S. shipyards still building large commercial cargo ships, has its main shipyard in South Korea. While the Hanwha in Philadelphia rolls out around one ship a year, a South Korean Hanwha shipyard makes one a week.
Michael Coulter, Hanwha’s top executive in charge of U.S. operations, says there’s a reason the U.S. shouldn’t just buy all of its ships from Korea.
“That doesn’t solve the problem. At the end of the day, shipbuilding is a national security necessity,” Coulter said. “The U.S. needs to be able to secure our own commerce. We need to be able to export our own energy.”
Why the state of the U.S. shipbuilding industry is a national crisis
Not building ships in the U.S. is considered both an economic and national security threat because if there’s a conflict with China, for instance, it could weaponize its substantial merchant fleet and cut the U.S. off from global goods.
The languishing shipbuilding industry also impacts the U.S. liquid national gas industry. The U.S. is the largest producer of natural gas, yet it doesn’t have any ships to transport it, according to Coulter. The Jones Act, a century-old law, requires any cargo shipped between U.S. ports to be on an American-made ship.
Michael Coulter and Lesley Stahl 60 Minutes
With no American-made LNG ships, the U.S. is able to export liquid natural gas on foreign carriers to over 30 countries, but is unable to send it to other parts of the U.S., according to Colin Grabow, a trade expert at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank.
“You might think, ‘Well, seems like an easy problem to solve. Go build the ship, transport the gas,’” Grabow said. “Except the math doesn’t work. If you want to build one of those ships in Asia, the cost is around $260 million; here in the United States? About $1 billion!”
This week, with the Iran war impacting prices, President Trump temporarily suspended the Jones Act, easing the transport of oil and gas within the U.S. Last year, he made solving the ship crisis a national priority, signing an executive order calling for an action plan.
“No president has done more to bolster American maritime power,” the White House said in a March statement to 60 Minutes.
The collapse of U.S. shipbuilding
The U.S. was once a global powerhouse when it came to building ships, but the industry atrophied due to a half century of shortsighted policies and neglect.
The Philadelphia shipyard, now owned by Hanwha, was once a symbol of American might and innovation. Ships built there helped the U.S. win its independence in the 18th century, and WWII in the 20th.
Today, it’s become a symbol of American industrial decline, a money loser falling decades behind global rivals. The yard still uses a crane from 1942.
Hanwha bought the Philadelphia shipyard in 2024 for $100 million, then poured in another $100 million and tasked David Kim, a Korean American born in Texas, to bring the yard into the 21st century. The company plans to spend $5 billion in Philadelphia. The hope is to eventually make 20 ships a year at the yard.
The push to revitalize shipbuilding in the U.S.
As part of a push to revitalize shipbuilding in the U.S., Hanwha sent 50 trainers from South Korea to Philadelphia to help teach U.S. workers. American shipyards have long faced a shortage of skilled labor, including welders and pipe fitters, in part because the work is grueling and dangerous. There’s a three year training program at the shipyard.
Jeff, one of the trainees participating in the program, said the work leaves him tired but he finds it “fulfilling” because it feels like he’s “part of something bigger.”
Kim said that in two years, visitors to the yard will see a workforce that has grown by 7,000 to 10,000 people. They can also expect robots and automated equipment. At the Korea shipyard, rows of robots are at work and the human workforce is expanding. The yard is training 400 people at once, way more than the 20 the program can train at a time in the U.S.
David Kim 60 Minutes
Coulter said the way to lower prices is to scale up production. At Hanwha’s Korea shipyard, nine ships are built at once. Pieces of ship the size of football fields slot together like pieces of Lego.
The Hanwha Korea yard also builds military vessels, including submarines, which the U.S. desperately needs. Hanwha offered to build submarines for the U.S. as the company does in Korea.
“The submarine program in the United States is heading in the wrong direction, and we think we can help,” Coulter said.
Conflicting national priorities may impede U.S. efforts to save shipbuilding industry
The South Korean trainers teaching potential U.S. workers needed visas to come to the U.S. Last September, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raided a Korean battery plant in Georgia, dragging off 300 Korean technicians and engineers in handcuffs and chains, alleging visa violations.
It caused a backlash in Korea.
“We’ve been assured that our visas are the right visas and our team is not going to be impacted,” Coulter said.
Mr. Trump’s focus on immigration enforcement and restriction of visas for foreign workers impedes efforts to help the shipbuilding industry, Grabow said.
“Traditionally, a lot of immigrants have been willing to do this kind of work,” he said. “And yet, we are turning our back on immigration and adopting a more hostile stance.”
The president also put a 50% tariff on steel, which is the main component in ships.
“This is one of the paradoxes of the Trump administration,” Grabow said. “We’re artificially increasing the cost of building ships in this country.”
While there’s no tariffs on American steel, producers in the U.S.will likely raise their prices to match the cost of the imported steel.
“These are profit-oriented enterprises,” Grabow said.
While Grabow argues the U.S. should just buy and use ships from South Korea, the White House is committed to making ships in the U.S.. So last year, when Mr. Trump threatened to put tariffs on Korean imports, Korea’s president offered instead to invest $150 billion to revive the U.S. shipbuilding industry, promising Philadelphia was just the start.
“There’s no doubt that we have challenges and headwinds, but I also think we have a unique moment in time,” Coulter said.