I am a mariner. My career has been spent on the water, on American vessels, in American ports, with American crews. That is the job. It has always been, to me, the definition of an “America First” industry, long before that phrase entered the political vocabulary.
The news that President Donald Trump is moving to reopen the Strait of Hormuz lands with particular weight for those of us who make our living on American waterways. The disruption that justified waiving the Jones Act is ending. The waiver should end with it.
Recommended Stories
Trump came into office with a clear vision for American maritime power — make it the biggest and most competitive industry in the world. His executive order on the maritime industry was the strongest signal this industry has received from the White House in a generation. It reflected something this president understands instinctively. A strong merchant marine is not a relic of industrial policy. It is a pillar of national strength and national security.
That is exactly why the Jones Act waiver has been so hard to watch.
The waiver was sold as price relief in an emergency. It delivered almost none. Its effect on fuel prices came to roughly $0.000157 per gallon, and the total fuel it moved over the first 60 days amounted to about 11 hours of national consumption. Over that same stretch, broker data show American vessels were available for roughly 90% of the waived routes. Those routes went to foreign operators anyway, operators who answer to none of our wage laws, our immigration rules, or our taxes.
That is not a trade-off. It is a giveaway, paid for by American crews left sitting idle for no measurable gain at the pump.
The Jones Act rests on a principle Washington already accepts everywhere else in transportation. We do not allow foreign airlines to fly passengers between American cities. We do not let foreign railroads haul freight between American towns. There is no principled reason to carve out an exception so foreign carriers, who do not play by our rules, can work American ports and waterways.
The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 was built to do two things at once: sustain a vibrant American maritime industry in peacetime and field a ready military asset in wartime. That dual purpose has not changed. The Jones Act is the legal backbone of it, and it has held for more than a century because the reasoning behind it has never stopped being sound.
A weakened domestic fleet is not a policy inconvenience. It is a national security gap. Every waiver that hands a domestic route to a foreign vessel is one more step toward a merchant marine that cannot answer the call when it matters most.
TRUMP’S JONES ACT WAIVER UNDERMINES HIS OWN MARITIME AGENDA
The waiver is set to run through mid-August. With the strait reopening, there is no reason to let it stand that long and no reason to extend it again. End it now. This industry supports roughly 650,000 American jobs, and we did not go anywhere during the waiver. We kept showing up, kept our certifications current, kept our vessels ready to sail. We are ready to deliver on Trump’s vision for American maritime dominance.
The surest way to advance that vision is also the simplest. Let American vessels, built in American shipyards, crewed by American mariners, carry American cargo on American waters, without exception and without waiver.
Capt. Reed Richardson is a working American mariner and Jones Act vessel captain.
