By Chris Westbrook, Vice President, Gulf Coast, at the Seafarers International Union.
Last month, a ship docked at a refinery in the small town of Reserve, Louisiana, roughly a half-hour drive from New Orleans. The vessel departed from Baltimore, and sailed down the Atlantic coast, loaded with asphalt and other manufacturing material.
On its face, nothing about this is remarkable — but the vessel’s arrival in New Orleans should outrage every American who cares about workers’ rights and national security. That’s because this is not an American ship. Jin Zhou Wan is owned and operated by a Chinese company that has “appeared on Department of Defense lists identifying Chinese military companies operating in the United States.” And under normal circumstances and U.S. law, its journey would be absolutely illegal.
The Jones Act prohibits foreign ships like Jin Zhou Wan from transporting goods between U.S. ports. For more than a century, the Jones Act has been one of the most effective pieces of industrial policy in American history, providing reliable domestic security, protecting maritime workers’ rights and supporting our overall maritime industry and infrastructure.
But since March, spurred by the start of the war with Iran, President Trump has waived Jones Act protections, welcoming foreign-flagged ships with foreign crews into America’s domestic commerce.
Trump’s presumed intentions here are reasonable. He has been advised that opening domestic shipping lanes to foreign-flagged vessels and crews will bring down prices (particularly energy costs) by increasing supplies during a time of war. Unfortunately, the facts do not bear this out.
The truth is that the waiver has failed to do the two things it was supposed to do. First, it has not opened new routes. According to a Navigistics Consulting report from the first months of the waiver, foreign vessels are largely sailing the same routes as legal Jones Act ships. Second, it has failed to reduce prices. Take gasoline: The report notes that only about 6.5 percent of U.S. gasoline moves on Jones Act vessels to begin with; the vast majority moves via pipeline.
So, it is no surprise that a price analysis covering March 23 to June 1 found no credible evidence that the waiver delivered relief at the pump. In fact, on several routes analyzed — including New Orleans to Port Everglades — foreign-flag rates were actually higher than Jones Act rates.
What has the waiver done?