America is facing a crisis on the seas and it has nothing to do with the Navy. One of the most lucrative blue-collar careers in the country is struggling to attract takers, even as national-security planners warn that the nation no longer has enough merchant sailors to crew the ships it needs in a crisis.
Fresh graduates from America’s seven maritime academies can walk directly into jobs paying more than $200,000 a year, with private cabins, free meals, global travel, and months of paid leave built into the schedule, writes The Wall Street Journal. Yet those perks are no longer enough to sustain the U.S.-flag fleet. Fewer than 200 large oceangoing commercial ships now sail under the American flag — less than 1 percent of the global fleet — and the problem is not shipbuilding capacity but manpower. Only about 10,000 qualified U.S. merchant mariners remain active, a fraction of the workforce that once sustained U.S. commercial and military logistics.
The implications extend far beyond economic competitiveness. In wartime, the Pentagon depends on civilian vessels and civilian crews to haul 90 percent of its tanks, ammunition, fuel, and equipment overseas. Last year, the Navy had to deactivate 17 ready-reserve supply ships because it simply could not find enough American mariners to operate them.
“Assuming we can build ships or bring them back under U.S. flag, can we man them sufficiently?” asked retired Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, former head of the Maritime Administration. “I don’t think so, not without some significant changes.”
President Trump responded with an executive order designed to revitalize American shipbuilding, ship ownership, and domestic crewing. Bipartisan bills now moving through Congress take up the same cause, reflecting rare agreement that the country is approaching a genuine strategic vulnerability.
At Kings Point — home of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy — new graduates say the lifestyle should sell itself. “I don’t think sailing is that hard to sell,” said Charles Wahlin, who finished his degree in June and spoke the WSJ. “I mean — money, six months vacation, live wherever you want. And you’re serving the nation. What other job allows that much flexibility?”
For many, the attraction only deepens once they get underway. Noah Lastner, a 2025 graduate who has already sailed to Singapore and the Philippines, put it bluntly: “Once I went to sea, I realized how hard it would be to give up that lifestyle and transition back” to a desk job.
But even with hefty signing bonuses, upgraded onboard internet, better food, and modern gyms, companies report hundreds of officer billets sitting empty. The deeper challenge is cultural: most young Americans simply don’t know the job exists.
When June graduate John Salkeld explained his career choice to friends at traditional colleges, he got blank stares. “They’re like, ‘Wait — that’s a thing? Are you on a big boat, going across the ocean?’”
Wahlin argues that the industry is missing entire categories of young people who would thrive at sea if only someone told them about it. “If you went to the average auto-mechanic shop and were like, ‘Hey, you want every tool ever, almost infinite supplies, and you can do whatever you want?’ they’d be like, ‘Yeah, sure, how do I do that?’” he said. “And by the way, you make 140 grand” for half a year’s work. “It’s honestly the ultimate man-cave.”
View this post on Instagram
Yet despite the pay, prestige, and national-security importance, the merchant marine remains one of the least visible professions in America. The academy itself enrolls fewer than 1,000 students and has long struggled for stable funding. As Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy put it earlier this year: “This academy has been neglected for way too long.”
Now, with geopolitical tensions rising and global supply chains growing brittle, the administration and Congress are scrambling to reverse the neglect by the Obama and Biden administrations before the nation discovers, in the middle of a crisis, that it no longer has the mariners needed to move its economy or supply its military.
[Read More: Trump Prosecutor Facing More Watchdog Complaints]
