MarAd's Carmel: Great Lakes are Central to America's Maritime Revival

CHICAGO — July 30, 2026 —  The United States cannot rebuild its maritime strength by focusing solely on its ocean coasts. Instead, the nation's industrial resurgence depends on recognizing the Great Lakes as one of America's five maritime coastlines and leveraging the region's unmatched manufacturing ecosystem, according to U.S. Maritime Administrator Stephen M. Carmel.

Speaking at the American Great Lakes Ports Association's annual meeting in Chicago today, Carmel argued that the Great Lakes should be viewed not as a regional transportation network, but as a national strategic asset that is central to rebuilding America's commercial shipbuilding and industrial base.

"For generations, we have spoken as though the United States had three coasts—the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Gulf," Carmel said. "That has never been true. America has five coasts: the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf, the Great Lakes and the Arctic."

While the Arctic has increasingly become a focal point for national security and geopolitical competition, Carmel said the Great Lakes deserve equal strategic attention – and funding –  because they connect directly to North America's industrial heartland through the St. Lawrence Seaway and represent one of the country's few remaining complete maritime ecosystems.

Carmel said Washington is beginning to embrace a broader view of maritime policy, citing the Maritime Action Plan, the SHIPS Act and renewed emphasis on shipbuilding, workforce development, financing and strengthening the domestic industrial base. Importantly, he stressed that these initiatives extend well beyond America's saltwater coasts.

"For a long time, America talked about maritime issues as though they were simply transportation issues," Carmel said. "The larger truth is that maritime strength is about the system they create together."

He argued that rebuilding America's maritime sector is ultimately about rebuilding manufacturing.

Cargo creates demand for ships. Ships create demand for mariners. Mariners sustain shipyards. Shipyards support suppliers, and those suppliers preserve the industrial capabilities that underpin both economic prosperity and national security.

"The Great Lakes never lost that system," Carmel said, noting that while much of the country watched shipyards close and supply chains disperse, the region continued moving the iron ore, steel and industrial cargoes that powered American manufacturing. "When America became the greatest industrial power the world had ever seen, it did not happen despite the Great Lakes. It happened because of them."

That industrial foundation, he said, offers a blueprint for the rest of the country.

Rather than viewing shipbuilding as the responsibility of a handful of coastal yards, Carmel said successful maritime nations develop integrated ecosystems capable of designing, building, repairing, financing and sustaining ships over generations. He pointed to the Great Lakes' ports, shipyards, suppliers, manufacturers, workforce and educational institutions as evidence that such an ecosystem already exists.

Carmel also challenged Great Lakes stakeholders to help shape the next phase of U.S. maritime policy by providing lawmakers with specific projects, cargo opportunities and regulatory obstacles as Congress prepares new maritime legislation for 2027. Decisions made during the coming months, he said, will determine whether Great Lakes priorities are embedded in national policy from the outset rather than added later.

Despite growing bipartisan support for rebuilding American maritime capacity—and billions of dollars already committed to federal shipbuilding programs, Carmel said the greatest threat to success is neither foreign competition nor funding.

He believes the industry's biggest challenge is mindset.

"Too many people look at this mission and conclude that the problems are too complex, that we're too far behind and that the competition is too entrenched," Carmel said. "And I reject all of that."

America's maritime revival, he concluded, will depend on the same spirit of innovation and determination that built the Great Lakes into the industrial engine of the nation.