By VOICES Staff.
The Miracle Theatre, Washington, DC’s oldest movie theater, was packed with an engaged audience as one of the nation’s leading podcasts – Bloomberg’s “Odd Lots” – recorded its first-ever episode on the Jones Act. Hosted by analysts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, this was also the show’s first live event in the nation’s capital, adding to the excitement. Audience members from around the country filled the seats, including many champions of America’s maritime workforce.
Sara Fuentes, Vice President for Government Affairs at the Transportation Institute, delivered a compelling defense of the Jones Act against a spokesperson from the Cato Institute, which has driven much of the anti-Jones Act argument.
Fuentes laid out the primary arguments for the Jones Act: American Economic Security, National Security and Homeland Security.
She highlighted how it creates 650,000 American jobs, ensures self-sufficiency in non-contiguous trade regions like Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and supports the nation’s shipbuilding industrial base.
Perhaps most importantly, Fuentes footstomped the reliability the Jones Act provides: “It’s reliability. It’s that stability in the marketplace, in knowing everybody is playing by the same set of rules, knowing that shipment will show up, and that really matters.”
On national security, Fuentes issued a stark warning about China’s maritime ambitions: “The People’s Republic of China has made a strategic decision to over-invest in its own maritime capability. They are deliberately undermining the prices.”
She emphasized that without the Jones Act, the U.S. shipbuilding industry would be unable to compete against China’s state-backed predatory pricing.
Meanwhile, Cato Institute spokesperson Colin Grabow, named in a recent FARA filing as an important partner in an EU-supported campaign against the Jones Act, attempted to make the case against this commonsense national security law.
Among his claims were speculative studies and broad generalizations, such as the curious statement that U.S. shipbuilding has been “uncompetitive since the Civil War.” As shipping analyst John D. McCown shared in a social media comment after the event, “Might someone at Cato tell Colin that the thousands of ships the U.S. built during WWII were all deployed internationally and became the majority of the world’s postwar commercial tonnage?”
Grabow also struggled to counter analysis by the Navy League, Frontiers of Freedom, the Lexington Institute, and scores of government and military leaders that allowing an unprecedented number of unvetted mariners on untracked ships could be dangerous.
While the lively crowd of debate spectators counted supporters of both sides of the issue on whether or not we should outsource our critical industries (can you imagine being in favor of that?), there is still strong support in Capitol Hill and across the nation for the 650,000 men and women of American Maritime.
“The Jones Act is popular. It’s been popular with Republicans. It’s been popular with Democrats. It’s popular across administrations. It’s also really popular with the United States military,” Fuentes noted.
As the discussion wrapped up, it was evident that the Jones Act remains a cornerstone of America’s security, economy, and ability to maintain sovereignty over its maritime supply chain.
Listen to the podcast yourself and learn more about this critical law:
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