The cost of building a dredge also involves the cost of labor hours required to build it.
American labor hours are more expensive. You can’t just import the Belgian and Dutch workers building the world class dredges at their salaries for the purpose of supplanting domestic workers.
I do agree that labor hours can be costly, but if we're looking at Western Europe as a competitor to America, then surely we're looking at a situation where labor costs should be lower? Surely? Like Belgian and Dutch workers aren't going to be cheap either, right?
So, not an expert in shipbuilding, but from research I've seen on transit costs (which are also subject to provisions regarding American-made content) it is generally also a theme of labor productivity. American companies and workers are generally unfamiliar with best practices elsewhere, and workers are also generally not supportive of increasing labor productivity. In that same vein, no American company has actually built a dredger like this before, so I doubt they'd be able to go about building one in the best way possible.
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According to Reuters, the ports of Rotterdam & Shanghai use 5 workers to do what 20 do in US ports, which is a contributing factor to American supply chain disruption. [1] Automation & productivity gain is an increasing source of labor strife at US ports.
Very often the issue with regulatory traps like this is nobody will risk the massive investment, when their entire business could be wiped out by the repeal of a little known law. Without the dredge act the investors on such a project would be out hundreds of millions, and left with a completely uncompetitive business. Who would risk that when there are people actively lobbying for repeal and doing so is such an obviously good idea?
Meanwhile the current US dredging companies are raking in fat profits from operating cheap low capacity ships, so they have no incentive. If you want to get in on the business the low risk high reward approach is to build a low capacity dredger, or adapt an existing vessel, so that’s what people do.
Belgian and Dutch workers have a domestic shipbuilding industry of note which the US doesn’t really. They have the benefit of many, many decades of expertise so they’re far more productive than some hypothetical US shipbuilding industry. And US workers are paid more in every industry than foreign equivalents in every industry I’m aware of. The US is much richer per capita than every other independent state. It’s worth it to pay those labour costs if they’re far more productive but in this industry they’re really, really not.
Why can't you? That's exactly what the wind farms did - brought in Spanish workers after the initial contract period to replace the more expensive US labor.
Edit: why disagree without a response? I never said it was right. I'm saying it's not impossible and has been done in the past.
The US guys were making around $50/hr and the replacements were making around $35/hr. Neither of those are close to median wage, but one is much cheaper.
A fitting reply to an entire thread of armchair shipyard workers.
FACT: I make $66K as the Assistant Foreman of the Inside Machine Shop.
I run a busy shipyard repair yard shop for Tugs and larger.
6 employees and my boss.
I make $31 dollars an hour in Norfolk Virginia USA.
My salary is similar to most all shipyards in the region.
I have 37 years experience in the marine environment.
My example was only that - an example. There's nothing to say that the ship builders need to come from Spain. Additionally, pay is only one aspect. It's possible that it's easier to hire globally, than to train domestically during these times.
Fact: a huge dredge ship might cost $250-300 million or more.
Problem: then buying one to do the project and then throwing it away would save money. But this isn’t being done.
I have my suspicions about how much money would actively be saved, and note a bunch of “remove any and all safeguards”.