Written by
Nick Blenkey
On a mission to influence Korean shipbuilders to put money into U.S. shipyards, SECNAV Carlos Del Toro was given a tour of HD Hyundai’s Ulsan shipyard by HD Hyundai vice chairman and CEO Kisun Chung (at left of SECNAV). [U.S. Navy photograph]
Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro has been assembly with high South Korean shipbuilding executives and making the case for them to create American subsidiaries and put money into built-in U.S. business and naval shipbuilding amenities.
Shortly after arriving in Seoul on Sunday, February 25, Secretary Del Toro engaged individually with Hanwha vice chairman and CEO Dong Kwan Kim and HD Hyundai vice chairman and CEO Kisun Chung.
The morning of Tuesday, February 27, Chung personally gave Secretary Del Toro a tour of HD Hyundai’s shipyard in Ulsan. Later that afternoon, the Secretary traveled to Geoje Island, the place Hanwha Ocean CEO Hyek-woong Kwon led a tour of his firm’s shipyard there.
Final yr there was some hypothesis that Hanwha Ocean (the previous Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, acquired by the Hanwha Group final yr) had been eyeing an acquisition of Philly Shipyard.
“In every of those engagements, I delivered to the desk a easy, but profound alternative: put money into America,” mentioned Secretary Del Toro. “I used to be enormously gratified by the sturdy curiosity expressed by the leaders of every of those world-class shipbuilders in establishing U.S. subsidiaries and investing in shipyards in america.”
With China persevering with to aggressively pursue worldwide shipbuilding dominance, Secretary Del Toro additionally expressed his appreciation that the Republic of Korea, one among America’s closest allies, continues to carry its personal within the worldwide shipbuilding trade.
The significance of Korean shipbuilding as an asset to the U.S.-ROK alliance and to the community of worldwide maritime democracies can’t be overstated, notes Del Toro’s workplace.
As a part of a name for a brand new maritime statecraft made in a speech to the Harvard Kennedy College on September 26, 2023, Secretary Del Toro noticed that the U.S. maritime trade “is ripe with alternative to accomplice with a better variety of shipbuilders right here within the U.S. and with our closest allies abroad, together with Japan and South Korea.” In that very same speech, he introduced his goal as being to “appeal to probably the most superior shipbuilders on the earth to open U.S.-owned subsidiaries and put money into business shipyards right here within the U.S., modernizing and increasing our shipbuilding industrial capability and making a more healthy, extra aggressive shipbuilding workforce.”
Secretary Del Toro mentioned his engagements over the previous a number of days affirmed and superior that imaginative and prescient.
“As I noticed firsthand throughout my shipyard visits in Korea this week, Hanwha and Hyundai set the worldwide trade normal,” he mentioned. “I couldn’t be extra excited on the prospect of those corporations bringing their experience, their expertise, and their cutting-edge greatest practices to American shores. As world class leaders within the world shipbuilding enterprise, they’re poised to energise the U.S. shipbuilding market with recent competitors, famend innovation and unequalled industrial capability.”
The Secretary’s journey to the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Palaualigns intently with the Pentagon’s Nationwide Protection Industrial Technique, which requires enterprise capital and new concepts to revive the U.S. industrial base.
Secretary Del Toro famous that “along with our presently lively shipyards, there are quite a few former shipyard websites across the nation that are largely intact and dormant. These are ripe for redevelopment as dual-use building amenities for each warships, like AEGIS destroyers, in addition to excessive worth chain business vessels, such because the ammonia fuel carriers that may allow the worldwide transition from fossil fuels to inexperienced power sources like hydrogen.”
The Secretary emphasised the financial worth of revitalizing U.S. shipbuilding: “Funding in dual-use shipyards in america will create good paying, blue collar and new-collar American jobs constructing the superior ships that may defend and energy the financial system of tomorrow.”
As he departed Korea, Secretary Del Toro underscored that his engagements with Hyundai and Hanwha’s leaders this week marked solely the start, including, “I sit up for internet hosting Mr. Chung and Mr. Kim at my workplace within the Pentagon to proceed our discussions within the coming weeks.”
