The US House of Representatives passed a package of nine transportation-related bills, including several aimed at enhancing maritime supply chain security, reinforcing the US flag fleet, and cracking down on foreign adversary involvement at American ports. Among the most significant measures passed are H.R. 2390, the Maritime Supply Chain Security Act and H.R. 252, the Secure Our Ports Act of 2025—bills introduced by Reps. David Rouzer (R-NC) and Ken Calvert (R-CA), respectively.
The two bills are designed to reduce the influence of China and other adversaries on critical US port infrastructure. H.R. 2390 amends the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP)—a major federal grant program administered by MARAD—to ensure that funding from the program can be used to replace port cranes containing Chinese-origin hardware or software, a growing concern given that Chinese company ZPMC manufactures nearly 80% of the world’s ship-to-shore cranes.
National security officials have warned that these cranes may be equipped with data-collection technology or backdoors that pose cybersecurity risks to US ports. H.R. 252 goes further by prohibiting entities owned or controlled by China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran from owning, leasing, or operating US port facilities that are subject to Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) plans.
The bipartisan bill would mandate that 100% of Department of Transportation cargoes be shipped on US-owned, US-crewed commercial vessels, up from 50 percent currently, marking a major expansion of cargo preference rules that could provide a boost to the shrinking US-flag fleet.
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