Many nations have ruled the seas since ancient times. The Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Carthaginians, Vikings, and the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa were all preeminent maritime powers in their time. The 16th Century saw the rise of the Spanish and Portuguese as they plundered their new discoveries in America. Holland even got into the act. An entire despicable maritime business arose in the slave trade to the new world both to North and South America. The rise of Britain as a major trade and sea power coincided with the demise of the bulk of the Spanish naval fleet when they attempted to invade Britain in 1588 to depose Queen Elizabeth. Britain had a very small navy but was saved by a storm that basically destroyed the Spanish war fleet, but its trade fleet with its colonies remained intact for 200 more years. Britain then began to develop trade all over the world, growing both its merchant marine and naval fleet to protect its trade interests in India, the Far East, and their burgeoning American Colonies. Sea trade was booming all over the world, and by the beginning of the 19th century, the United States positioned itself to rule the seas.

With the winning of the Revolution, the United States began to build a small proper navy to protect its trade vessels and their growing markets. The newly birthed United States began to carve up, piece by piece, Britain’s lock hold on world trade. The fact that the southern states were rich in cotton, which Britain needed for her mills, and their craving for tobacco required American ships to transport the goods. The shipbuilding industry grew exponentially. Britain and Europe, having denuded their forests for centuries, also needed select lumber, and the Americas were rich in wood and many other natural resources Britain and all of Europe craved. It was a two-way street. In addition, hundreds of Yankee whaling ships roamed the oceans in pursuit of whale oil, which was used to light American homes and was another much-needed export product from the USA to Europe.
America began to dominate the sea trade during the age of the sleek, long, fast “Clipper Ships” that were developed in our shipyards. Soon, the American burgee could be found flying in almost every major trading port in the world. The clippers brought natural goods to foreign ports and came back with porcelains and silks from the Far East and fine wines from France, Germany and Italy, exotic cheeses, olives, nuts, and furniture, to name a few desired items. It is interesting to note that in most years, from even the early days of the United States, except for a few small periods, America has always had a trade imbalance due to our desire for foreign goods. It’s nothing new.
The American shipping trade dominated the world with occasional ups and downs up until a few years after World War II and then began experiencing steeper declines. The United States was in a unique position at the end of the war. We had the largest navy and the largest trade fleet in the world. Our shipyards produced three freighters per week during the war. These were called “Liberty Ships”. First, they were used to carry men and materials to the war zones and to supply our allies. Fleets of these ships were protected by our destroyers and frigates, which were faster to build, smaller and less vulnerable than monster battleships and provided ample firepower to protect against German U-boats and Japanese sea power. Aircraft carriers became the backbone of sea power and the USA used them to great advantage up to the present. That will soon be changing, as I will point out in a future article.
At the end of the war, these liberty ships were used to send help to rebuild and feed the war-torn counties. But then something strange began to take place. Slowly, America began to sell off the Liberty ships at an alarming and discounted rate. The chief benefactors were Greek merchant entrepreneurs such as Aristotle Onassis, Stavros Niarchos, the Goulandris brothers, and several others. Next thing, the Greeks are modernizing those same ships, turning many into oil tankers, and others into world trade ships. They began to chew away at the American shipping industry while becoming billionaires. I don’t fault them. They saw an opportunity and took it. We were the suckers. The result was that in the post-war years, especially after 1960, merchant shipping and vessel building in America took a nosedive, and many large facilities closed or converted to building naval ships and submarines, which seemed to be the only focus of the United States Government. The remaining shipyards found it much more profitable to build warships for the Pentagon. When I write “much more profitable,” you can’t imagine how your tax dollars enriched this new wave of “Patriotic Private Industries” who lobby our squeaky clean, “for the American working man” senators and congressmen for “More, More, More!”
The result ended tragically for our commercial marine industries. Today, the United States controls only an abysmal 0.10 % of the world’s commercial shipping. Greece, China, S. Korea, and Japan are the biggest world players, and in Europe, five countries are in the top ten. Britain doesn’t even rate in the top 15. Below is a list of the top shipping players and the tonnage of their commercial fleets. (Source: The Visual Capitalist and other sources studied indicated variances, but the figures stayed in the same direction. All sources showed a dramatic loss in U.S. commercial tonnage. These numbers are exclusive of military shipping.

1 – Greece——364 million gross tonnages

2 – Japan——-233 million gross tonnages

3 – China——228 million gross tonnages (May be close to Greece)

14 – United States—-A pathetic 64,808 gross tonnages (Pathetic)

The various resources studied for this article all had different placement of countries’ positions, but they ALL indicated the same issue.
The United States has seriously abrogated its position in global shipping. I can list the reasons why this is a huge mistake but the irony in all of this is that the United States focuses on using our tax dollars to build more sophisticated naval power to keep the seas safe for commercial shipping in the South China Sea, the Red Sea, fighting pirates off the East Africa Coast, and generally keeping shipping lanes open all over the world, Yet, we have virtually no commercial shipping of our own to protect. Nor are we paid by other countries to keep our expensive navy at sea. How the United States Government let the maritime industry go to rust mystifies me and should do the same to you!
Now, if you want to get really sick, over 30% of our country’s major state-of-the-art commercial ports are now operated by foreign entities, and this absurd situation is growing. This is for a future discussion.

Copyright 2025 by Mark C. Nuccio, All rights reserved.
Contact and curses to “Mark@designedge.net