US House Armed Services Committee passes NDAA provision banning foreign construction of Navy warships

A lawmaker on the US House Armed Services Committee said the panel passed a fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act — covering October 2026 through September 2027 — that includes a provision banning the construction of US Navy combat vessels at foreign shipyards.

According to the website of Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Golden said in a press release published June 5 that the Navy "will have to abandon its plans to ship shipbuilding jobs overseas" under an NDAA provision the House Armed Services Committee approved early Monday.

The NDAA is an annual bill authorizing the Defense Department's spending and policies; it takes effect after passing both chambers of Congress and receiving the president's signature. The committee passed the fiscal year 2027 NDAA on June 5 by a vote of 44 to 12 after multiple rounds of amendments. Golden said the bill incorporated his amendment prohibiting the use of funds to build Navy warships at foreign shipyards.

Golden said two of his amendments to the NDAA were approved by the committee, one of which would "block the Navy's plans to outsource abroad." He said the amendment added language specifying that "none of the funds made available to the Navy in fiscal year 2027 may be obligated or expended to enter into a contract for the procurement of a combat vessel to be constructed at a foreign shipyard."

"American military spending should support American jobs," Golden said. "The idea of building any part of our surface fleet on foreign soil with foreign labor is unacceptable." He added that he was grateful to his fellow committee members "for recognizing that this plan is a threat to American industry, American jobs, and national security."

The bill now moves to the full House floor and must still be reconciled with the Senate's version of the NDAA, meaning the amendment is not yet final.

However, if the provision survives the final legislative process, it could complicate the Pentagon's recent push to use allied shipyards — including those in South Korea — to procure next-generation warships. It could also dampen momentum behind MASGA (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again), a US-South Korea shipbuilding cooperation initiative.

USNI News and other US naval trade outlets reported last month that the Pentagon allocated $1.85 billion (about 2.7 trillion won) in its fiscal year 2027 budget request for an "advanced shipbuilding industrial base and future vessel experimentation" program. The budget documents noted that procurement options for additional vessels would include "research into the capacity of allied nation shipbuilders to construct vessels or components."

Former Navy Secretary John Phelan also said in a recent interview that he was considering the possibility of procuring warships from abroad, noting that production capacity considerations "could lead us toward countries like South Korea and Japan."

The dynamic reflects a broader tension in which the political interests of lawmakers eager to project a job-protecting image ahead of November's midterm elections — which will determine the next class of federal lawmakers and governors — are overriding the security rationale for tapping foreign shipbuilding capacity to accelerate fleet expansion.