On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) responded to a question on if America can build the newly announced Trump class of ships by stating that America has to boost its shipbuilding capability.
Host Kasie Hunt asked, “Do we have the capability to — again, whatever you call them — to build these ships? Because our capacity to build ships has been declining in recent decades.”
Gimenez answered, “That’s correct. And that’s one of the things that we’re doing in the House Armed Services Committee, is emphasizing that we need to step up our shipbuilding capability here in the United States, because we have fallen way, way behind. And, for too long, we’ve allowed these capabilities to go offshore, especially to China. So, look, when I tell you that they can outbuild us 250:1, for every large ship that we build in the United States, China can build 250. We’re not going to catch up to them. But what we need to do is make sure that the ships we build are highly lethal and able to combat the growing Chinese threat, and so we need to get to it and we need to start building them. And if it’s a new class of battleship, then so be it, with new weapons, space-age weapons, there won’t be the big guns, it’ll be something else. And we need to start building and we need to start building that capability right here in the United States.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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