Congress Blocks Trump Administration's Foreign Warship Purchase Plans

Congressional defense committees have voted to restrict the Trump administration's efforts to purchase foreign-built warships, marking a significant legislative pushback against executive branch plans to acquire Navy vessels from allied shipyards. The Senate Armed Services Committee's mark of the Fiscal Year 2027 defense policy bill removes the presidential waiver authority from Title 10 that previously allowed the commander-in-chief to invoke an undefined "national security interest" exception to bypass domestic shipbuilding requirements. This change eliminates a broad loophole that could have enabled the acquisition of combat vessels from foreign facilities.

However, the legislation permits the Pentagon to acquire auxiliary vessels—including tankers, bulk fuel vessels, and roll-on/roll-off ships—from allied shipyards under a framework modeled on the Ice Pact cooperative agreement between the U.S., Finland, and Canada for icebreaker construction. Any such arrangement would require the foreign shipyard to be located in a U.S. treaty ally country. The Defense Secretary must submit a detailed report to Congress before issuing contracts, including acquisition plans by ship class, construction locations, information security safeguards, and a strategy to bring the foreign industrial base and supply chain back to the United States for subsequent ship construction.

The Trump administration's FY 2027 budget proposal specifically outlined plans to pursue foreign designs for U.S. Navy frigates and destroyers potentially built in South Korean and Japanese shipyards. This triggered broad opposition from congressional Democrats, the Shipbuilders Council of America, and key representatives of American shipbuilding regions. Representative Jared Golden of Maine, whose district includes General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, successfully sponsored an amendment in the House Armed Services Committee that bars authorized funding from being used for American warships built in foreign yards.

House appropriators reinforced this position by including language in their draft FY 2027 spending bill that prohibits funds from being allocated to ship construction in foreign facilities. The Defense Secretary must also determine that foreign construction would be faster than domestic building unless there is a compelling "readiness or force posture" justification for building abroad. These multiple congressional provisions, advanced by both chambers and their respective defense and appropriations committees, represent a coordinated effort to prevent the outsourcing of major naval warship construction to foreign nations, regardless of their allied status.