Made in America is often an accurate description of the boats in our nation’s marinas. As Republicans prepare to implement President Trump’s vision for turning the United States into a manufacturing superpower, the National Marine Manufacturers Association estimates that 95% of boats sold here are already built here.
That figure is significant, but almost all of those boats the NMMA describes are smaller than 26 feet. Brands such as Azimut and Ferretti in Italy and Sunseeker in the U.K. dominate the midrange powerboat segment at boat shows, with French behemoths Beneteau and Jeanneau commanding the sailboat sections. To be sure, there are popular American brands in the midrange mix, but Europe leads the global marketplace. Catamarans are generally an overseas story, too, with better-known names such as Lagoon and Fountaine Pajot in France, and Leopard and Balance in South Africa.
And in the superyacht sector, America hasn’t had a new launch smash the record books since 2010, when Derecktor’s 281-foot Cakewalk splashed in Bridgeport, Conn., as the largest yacht by volume ever built in the United States. Trinity Yachts in New Orleans — at one time the world’s sixth-largest builder of custom superyachts — ceased production nearly a decade ago. A handful of larger yachts are still built here, but almost all the wealthiest boat buyers head to the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey.
Altogether, the Made in America narrative is true for recreational boatbuilding, but so is the idea that a lot of voters share with the Trump-Vance administration, that more manufacturing should return to the United States. “My employees have absolutely all voted for Trump,” says Christophe Lavigne, president of Highfield USA in Cadillac, Mich. “They proudly voted that way. They want jobs.”
Tariffs and Inflation
Lavigne says he agrees with the overall concept of building boats for Americans in America. From a business perspective, he says, with customers in any country, it makes sense to invest in the nation where you’re selling the products. “That’s what Trump and Vance are talking about. That’s their whole philosophy that I share. We have a factory in the U.S. We are hiring U.S. workers,” Lavigne says. “There is value for that. I am going to design boats with American designers, American engineers, that better suit American needs. They need more foam. They need drink holders. They need different colors.”
For some builders, the concern is the way the administration is talking about trying to create more of those jobs. Tariffs on overseas imports could rebalance imports and exports, bringing more manufacturing home from a big-picture perspective, but the cost of the tariffs will be added to everything from raw aluminum to parts, which will likely drive up the overall price of boats. That, in turn, will potentially drive down boat sales. “The risk is, it has an inflation impact, a significant one,” Lavigne says of the tariffs that are being discussed. “It’s great if we build boats in the U.S., or bring back jobs in the U.S., but there is a cost. And the cost, we call that inflation.”
Highfield builds tenders, RIBs and jetboats that are typically smaller than 30 feet, with some smaller than 10 feet. The company rigs its boats in the United States but gets some components overseas because that’s where they’re available. Highfield’s supply-chain strategy includes buying things from places that are good at making them: aluminum hulls from one supplier, tubes from another, fiberglass consoles from yet another and so forth.
A tariff that significantly affects one or more of those supply chains, especially if others aren’t an option, can be a real problem — and it can be a substantial problem if there’s no domestic manufacturing in place as an alternative.
“I’m making a world product where I’m leveraging the talents of each country the best they are,” Lavigne says. “That’s what I’m trying to do. And trying to replace that overnight is kind of crazy.”
Just the talk of a tariff being imposed can cause a major economic shock for a U.S. builder like Highfield, he adds. In late November, when Trump threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all goods from Canada, Lavigne had just launched a new boat design in Canada.
“I signed four dealers in Canada. The Canadian dollar dropped by 10% value,” he says. “They told me, ‘Cancel the order.’ I lost an order. It was all because of talk.”
Larger Yachts
A different category of boat comes from Pacific Asian Enterprises, the Dana Point, Calif.-based company that produces Nordhavn yachts. Nordhavns are 41 to 120 feet, and the brand’s four factories are overseas — two in Taiwan, one in Turkey and one in China. PAE also has partnerships with overseas design firms such as Vripack in the Netherlands, which recently began creating customizable interiors for the N80.
Dan Streech, president and co-founder of PAE, says he doesn’t see manufacturing for those types of boats coming back to the United States — in part because of higher costs for labor and coastal land where factories would need to be located — but he does think the overall optimism about changing conditions under a Trump-Vance administration will be good for selling larger yachts. Lower taxes, fewer wars and rising consumer confidence can be a powerful force multiplier for sales.
“When people buy our boats, or any big boat, but almost especially ours, that’s not something you need. It is millions and millions of dollars for the bigger boats. It’s after-tax money,” Streech says. “You need a sense of confidence that society is going to hold together and not disintegrate, and that we’re generally safe. The very thing that brings you so much satisfaction and pleasure — our boat, or any boat — is also a millstone around your neck if things turn bad. So I, and all of us, I look for that elusive or unmeasurable, but strong — you can feel it — the confidence thing. The happy thing. The willingness to commit to a lifestyle that pretty much has to be in a society of success.”
He says he could sense “the confidence thing” returning in the wake of the election, not just in the United States but also in other parts of the world, including in Taiwan during a mid-December visit. “In China, for the last four years, we’ve had to watch these fighter jets near Taiwan and the scary statements and the missiles flying over, and they haven’t made a peep since Trump came in,” Streech says. “This time around, the power of the administration, who he’s appointing, is no joke. Unless that crumbles somehow — and I feel that it won’t — everybody says there’s a new sheriff in town.”
PAE did build boats in the United States in the past, he adds. One model was built in Orange County, Calif., more than 20 years ago. But even if all the labor, parts and other elements fell into place to attempt that again today, the basic act of getting the finished product to America’s yachting capital would still make less sense than building overseas. “It’s actually easier to ship a boat from Taiwan to Florida than it is from California to Florida,” Streech says. “It’s just common to ship boats out of Asia.”
Making sure there are buyers for those boats is what Streech is focusing on, and what he thinks the Trump-Vance administration will help to achieve. “I think we’re entering a phase of prosperity that will be bigger than the tariff question,” he says.
And overall, he says, every Nordhavn that’s built and sold can help the U.S. economy for far longer than any one-time tariff payment might. “Over the life of the boat, it actually creates more revenue and business activity than the purchase price of the boat,” Streech says. “You import it once and pay duty or don’t pay duty, but forever after, it’s paying insurance and shipyard fees and equipment. And a lot of our boats, it’s American equipment anyway. So the gain in overall GDP-type numbers of one of our boats coming into existence way far exceeds whatever that tariff number might be that the government might collect. It creates prosperity for 50 years with all the money that gets spent on it.”
Scenario Planning
Streech says he’s worried about things other than tariffs, such as the potential for stock-market drops. In December, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 had their biggest one-day percentage drop since early August after the Federal Reserve said it expects to make just two 25- basis-point cuts in 2025. The Dow plunged more than 1,100 points on that news — but then, two days later, partially rebounded on key inflation data that seemed promising.
Those kinds of swings can hit boat sales hard. After a big market drop or other major confidence-shaking event, Streech says, “you’re dead for six months after that. The Covid fiasco. Those are the things that are, in this type of business, you’re just vulnerable to that.”
And, Streech adds, he’s not expecting Trump to impose every tariff that’s being discussed. Simply making the threat may be enough to achieve the administration’s goals. “The rattling of the saber, and the way that he so quickly imposed that 25% tariff last time, they know he can do it,” Streech says. “Tariffs are not my top thing that’s in my brain right now. It is fingers crossed for the path of peace and prosperity that is coming.”
Lavigne says that instead of tariffs, he’d like to see a focus on taxes, such as reducing the amount of corporate tax that U.S. boatbuilders pay. “That would have a better impact, and it would not affect the price of the boats,” he says, adding that it also won’t come with the risk of retaliation. If the United States imposes tariffs on other countries, he says, they’ll try to hit back where it hurts, including in the recreational marine sector. “The Chinese, the Canadians, the Mexicans will react. And unfortunately, the boating industry is one of the segments that will be hurt.”
Lowering corporate taxes also negates the problem of whiplash that a tariff can bring, Lavigne says. While a tariff being imposed may be sudden, tax policy is longer-term. Boatbuilders can plan around tax rates, whereas they often cannot change their plans fast enough to respond to a tariff being imposed. “The speed of the tariff is a problem,” he says.
Lavigne and Streech both say that, overall, they support the Trump-Vance plan to move more manufacturing back to the United States and create jobs. The recreational marine industry, Lavigne adds, is already doing a great job of this in its own right. “Our industry is a very American-centric industry,” Lavigne says. “We’re doing good. It’s different than the cellphone industry.”
Similarly, Streech says: “Let’s build cars. We can build cars. And the computer chip thing, we should get that back.”
In addition, Streech says, he’s hopeful that the incoming administration will prioritize the kind of thinking that is required for success, as opposed to focusing on victimization as an excuse for failure. People have to want to get up in the morning and build things, and ideally take pride in that work, in order for a program of creating more manufacturing jobs to succeed.
“There’s a category of jobs that we can bring back, but it’s got to be part of a bigger program of self-reliance and willingness to work and attitude,” Streech says. “I love JD Vance, and I think his reverence for those forgotten blue-collar people is the right thing.”
If other countries are making it difficult for American products and workers to compete in other categories, he says, then those are the places to start, as opposed to the recreational marine market. “There are categories of things that, certainly, if it’s subsidized by a foreign government for dumping the product — obviously, our boats aren’t,” Streech says. “We have to compete without any subsidies or help from anybody.”
