By Jennifer Carpenter, President of the American Maritime Partnership.
It comes as no surprise that President Donald Trump is building a legacy as a consequential maritime president. After all, there are few areas of our economy that are more America First than the U.S. maritime industry. We have been a maritime nation since our founding, and the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, commonly known as the Jones Act, ensures that vessels moving cargo on our waterways are American-made, American-crewed, and sail under the American flag. It is a law critical to this industry and to the president’s agenda.
On April 9, the president issued an executive order to create a national strategy for America’s shipbuilding and maritime industries. The order authorizes the use of the Defense Production Act—best known for its role in keeping the economy moving during the pandemic—to invest in shipbuilding, ship repair, and port infrastructure, and goes on to call for better training for mariners and for expanding the American fleet. At the same time, President Trump has also imposed aggressive tariffs on equipment made by the People’s Republic of China, our chief maritime competitor.
Moves like these have already put President Trump in the running to be the most pro-U.S. maritime president since President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, sat in the Oval Office.
President Trump should therefore continue to push back against the arguments of foreign countries and global corporate interests determined to stymie the “America First” agenda—and that means he should beware of the strange-bedfellow coalition of libertarian dogmatists, special interests, and even foreign nations that want to weaken or even get rid of the Jones Act.
There is nothing more America First than the Jones Act. By requiring shipping within the United States to be done by vessels that are built in America, operated and crewed by Americans, and fully subject to U.S. laws, it is the maritime embodiment of President Trump’s motto, “Buy American and Hire American.”
Jones Act critics spill a lot of ink and make a lot of noise, but they don’t put America First – they have other priorities, like libertarian trade theology unsupported by American voters, and business interests not shared by the American workforce. Alarmingly, some libertarian dogmatists are alleged to have outright colluded with the European Union in a coordinated effort to undermine the Jones Act.
President Trump knows that America’s foreign competitors are looking out for themselves, not for American workers, American voters, or American security. Instead of listening to them and the well-funded talking heads echoing their arguments inside the Beltway, he should listen to the workers moving the nation’s cargo on America’s waterways and earning family wages working in good maritime jobs made possible by the Jones Act.
It is not hard to imagine what would happen without the Jones Act: the same thing that happened to American manufacturing in previous decades. Foreign shipping companies would undercut American companies on labor costs, putting many, if not all of them, out of business. Chief among those foreign competitors is China, which has the largest commercial fleet in the world and dominates shipbuilding today. China ran this exact playbook to bankrupt American steelworkers, subsidizing their own companies so that they could eventually corner our market. They would be more than happy to repeat that strategy with American maritime if given the chance.
Repealing the Jones Act would not just destroy a vital sector of our economy; it would be a threat to our national security. As Mike Stevens, CEO of the Navy League of the United States, has observed, “Opposition to a law as important as the Jones Act is a peacetime luxury that quickly evaporates when American security is at stake.”
Without the Jones Act, our most sensitive cargo, including from America’s energy and technology sectors, would be transported on our domestic waters by foreign mariners, including Chinese mariners who ultimately answer to the Chinese Communist Party. In China, there is no separation between private sector shipping and shipbuilding companies and the nation’s government.
Repealing the Jones Act would simply hand over our shipping to Xi Jinping and other foreign leaders looking out for the best interests of their own nations, not the American taxpayer.
What does the anti-Jones Act crowd promise us in exchange for repealing this foundational law? One study found that repealing the Jones Act would lower gas prices by less than one penny. Losing our entire maritime sector is simply too high a price to pay for such a little benefit. President Trump knows a good deal when he sees one, and this would be a bad deal.
President Trump’s decisive action to strengthen our maritime sector will make America more secure and more self-reliant. As he continues to rebuild our industrial base, the president should remember that there is nothing more America First than the Jones Act.
Jennifer Carpenter is the President of the American Maritime Partnership and also the President and CEO of the American Waterways Operators. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.