Maritime Administration MARAD

The Merchant Marine Act of 1936, signed on June 29, 1936, declared that the nation needed a merchant fleet able to carry its trade and serve as a naval auxiliary in war, and created the U.S. Maritime Commission, which oversaw the mass building of Liberty ships in World War II. Its promotional functions passed to the Maritime Administration in 1950, which moved to the Transportation Department in 1981. It is led by an Administrator confirmed by the Senate.

MARAD runs the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, and supports state maritime academies that train ship officers. It maintains the Ready Reserve Force and National Defense Reserve Fleet of cargo ships that can be activated to move military equipment, and pays U.S.-flag operators under the Maritime Security Program to keep commercial ships available for defense sealift. It also makes port infrastructure grants and administers loan guarantees for shipbuilding.

The U.S.-flag fleet in international trade has shrunk to well under a hundred ships, and American shipyards build only a tiny share of the world's commercial vessels, while China builds roughly half. The Jones Act of 1920 requires that cargo moving between U.S. ports travel on ships built, owned, and crewed by Americans, a law that supporters defend as vital to national security and critics blame for higher shipping costs in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska. In 2025 the administration launched initiatives to revive shipbuilding, including fees on Chinese-built ships calling at U.S. ports.