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Duffy Delivers Remarks at the 2026 National Maritime Day Observance, May 22, 2026

May 22, 2026 · US Department of Transportation · 1:25:20

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy delivered remarks at the Department of Transportation’s 2026 National Maritime Day observance at department headquarters in Washington, in the department’s upload of the May 22, 2026 ceremony, which the department’s events listing titles “National Maritime Day: Navigating the Next 250.” Maritime Administrator Steve Carmel and U.S. Transportation Command’s General Randall Reed also addressed the observance, as the program carried it.

Duffy framed the day as the industry’s turn from being overlooked to being rebuilt. Merchant mariners, he said, “have been the unsung heroes of our national security and our national story” — keeping the economy moving, energy lines open, shelves stocked, and the military equipped — but “many of you have felt overlooked over the past maybe years or decades,” and President Trump and the administration, he said, are changing that through the executive order to restore America’s maritime dominance: “We are putting this industry back on the map.” The best way to honor the mariners who came before, he argued, is “to lean in and rebuild the industry that America used to dominate” — into the Merchant Marine Academy, into shipbuilding, into the industry’s history. He noted the day’s awards as he previewed them: Merchant Marine Medals for Outstanding Achievement for six recipients, and the Gallant Ship Award presented for the first time since 2019, to the 23 crew members of the Stena Immaculate, as he stated the counts. Looking ahead, he said the industry and government have “at least the next two and a half years” in which they “can radically transform our trajectory,” with the invitation open to everyone in the industry to bring ideas.

Why it matters

A year after the 2025 observance laid out the maritime-dominance doctrine, the 2026 observance is its progress report: the executive order’s program now has its awards, its administrator, and its stated transformation window — and the Secretary told the industry, on the record, that he had declined to trade the department for any other cabinet job when the President asked.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the maritime-dominance build-out as restated May 22, 2026 — the industry’s trajectory to be “radically” transformed within the next two and a half years, as stated by Secretary Duffy. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation, “National Maritime Day” (official upload, embedded above); event title and date per the Department of Transportation’s events listing. Remarks as delivered by Secretary Duffy at the observance.