Benjamin Zycher explains at The Hill why one federal law is a great candidate for repeal.
Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — the Jones Act — requires that cargo transported between U.S. ports be carried on vessels that are built in the U.S., owned by U.S. firms, flagged as U.S. vessels and crewed primarily by U.S. citizens.
The ostensible goal of this law was to support the U.S. shipbuilding industry as a national security imperative. It was intended to preserve long-term investment incentives for domestic shipyards, repair facilities, skilled workers and a ship fleet and mariners that can support military supply needs.
But the actual outcomes yielded by the Jones Act are very different.
Among the top 20 shipbuilding countries in 2025, the U.S. produced about 25,000 gross tons, or .03 percent of global tonnage,. Only Croatia produces less.
It is simply a reality that U.S. shipbuilding costs are three to four times higher than those overseas. In 1950, there were 434 Jones Act-eligible oceangoing vessels of at least 1,000 gross tons. In the time since, this number has collapsed to just 93 ships in 2026, despite the American economy growing tenfold in inflation-adjusted terms during the same period.
Accordingly, the national security and industrial base benefits of the Jones Act are deeply dubious; it is little more than a special-interest subvention for about five domestic shipyards.
But the Jones Act distorts domestic shipping substantially, with great economic damage as a result, particularly in the energy sector. It is difficult to ship petroleum products refined in Gulf Coast refineries to the East Coast; instead, because of the Jones Act, it often is cheaper simply to import fuels from other countries, even despite greater risks of supply disruptions. …
… The economic benefits of the recent waivers have been important even over the short period since March. They have opened domestic energy shipping routes to a much larger supply of ocean tankers, yielding greater flexibility in terms of market responses to shifting conditions, and thus increased resilience in the face of adverse weather events or refinery outages.
