Without the Jones Act, communist China could crew the Mississippi

Published September 27, 2026 10:00am ET



Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has made commercial-driver safety a major priority, tightening the rules governing non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses and requiring more reliable verification that foreign-domiciled drivers are legally eligible and qualified to operate enormous commercial vehicles on American highways.

That raises an important parallel question: If we care about who is operating an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer on an American interstate, shouldn’t we care at least as much about hostile nations that operate massive commercial vessels carrying cargo through America’s ports, rivers, and inland waterways?

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