Stephen Carmel, an executive with Maersk Line Ltd. (MLL), has been nominated to replace Brent Sadler as the head of the U.S. Maritime Administration.
The nomination was filed in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. Carmel replaces Sadler, who was nominated in March but had yet to undergo a Senate nomination hearing. The reason for Sadler’s nomination withdrawal remains unclear.
Marad, an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation, is responsible for promoting U.S. domestic shipping and shipbuilding, as well as providing funding for port intermodal connections with rail and trucking.
According to Carmel’s bio at the Yorktown Institute, a U.S. national security and geopolitical forum where he currently serves as an adviser, Carmel is the senior vice president of maritime services at MLL, the U.S.
subsidiary of Copenhagen, Denmark-based liner shipping company Maersk. He is also a licensed deep-sea ship’s master and a former vessel captain, as per the institute’s information.
Carmel’s nomination coincides with President Donald Trump’s efforts to restore U.S. maritime power as part of his “America First” agenda. This agenda includes plans to increase the fleet of the U.S.-flag fleet for international trading and domestic transport.
In a 2021 presentation for the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs, a not-for-profit foreign policy forum, Carmel highlighted the critical state of the U.S. merchant fleet, which he attributed to a severe shortage of sealift capacity.
During his presentation, Carmel emphasized that this issue demands substantial attention from the U.S. government. He acknowledged that there are no straightforward solutions and that the country is still grappling with the magnitude of the problem and the necessary actions to address it.
Carmel also warned about the unintended consequences of broad tariffs on supply chains and trading partners. He underscored the advantages of reshoring and highlighted the complex economic challenges associated with utilizing the Arctic sea route for container shipping.
