Jones Act Waiver Moved 31 Million Barrels Between U.S. Ports in 90 Days. The Permanent Law Couldn't Do That.

What the Waiver Did

When the United States launched military operations against Iran in February, fuel and fertilizer prices spiked. President Trump responded by issuing a waiver of Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, the Jones Act, which requires that cargo moving between U.S. ports travel on ships built, owned, and crewed by Americans.

While the waiver was initially for 60 days, Customs and Border Protection later approved a 90-day extension, pushing its expiration to mid-August.

The results were immediate. According to a Wall Street Journal report by Alana Pipe and Ryan Dezember, more than 31 million barrels of fuel and chemicals moved between U.S. ports aboard foreign vessels during the waiver period. More than 70% of those shipments originated on the Gulf Coast, which accounts for over half of U.S. refining capacity.

California, which normally depends on Persian Gulf imports and carries the highest gasoline prices in the country, received gasoline shipped from refineries in Texas, Louisiana, and Washington. A domestic supply chain became accessible for the first time.

Routes That Hadn't Existed in Years

Colin Grabow, associate director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, documented the specifics in a Washington Post piece. Ships carried jet fuel from the East Coast to the West Coast for the first time in nearly two decades. Bulk propane reached Puerto Rico from Texas and Pennsylvania for what Grabow described as the first time ever. Hawaii bought gasoline from Texas. Alaska imported jet fuel from Louisiana. Ohio shipped fuel across the Great Lakes to Wisconsin.

What the Jones Act Was Supposed to Do

The law was designed to protect American shipbuilders from foreign competition. The logic was straightforward: require domestic cargo to move on American ships, and you build a robust U.S. merchant fleet.

It hasn't worked. Writing in The Atlantic last year, Arnav Rao reported that a mere 0.13% of the world's large vessels are built in the United States. China, by comparison, fills roughly 60% of all new global shipbuilding orders and holds more than 200 times America's shipbuilding capacity. U.S. imports and exports predominantly travel on foreign-built ships owned and crewed almost exclusively by nine giant carriers based in Europe and Asia.

As Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute wrote, "Rather than bolstering US commercial shipping capacity and the merchant marine, the Jones Act has presided over the steady degradation of both."

The Jones Act has been in effect for over a century. The U.S. shipbuilding industry it was meant to grow is not competitive globally. Cargo ships can cost five times as much to build in the U.S. as in Asia, and requiring American owners and crew can cost twice as much.

The Strongest Case for Keeping It

Defenders of the Jones Act make a national security argument. In a letter to the president, 52 Republican lawmakers — including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R–La.) — advised Trump to let the waiver expire and called the Jones Act "our nation's strongest shield against foreign exploitation of American waterways." They argued that the waiver "has become a loophole exploited by adversarial countries to erode America's maritime dominance."

The American Maritime Partnership, which represents the domestic shipping industry, added: "The Jones Act waiver gives work to foreign vessels and foreign mariners instead of Americans. Every waiver extension creates additional uncertainty for American shipowners, American mariners, and American shipyards."

Those concerns are real. But the waiver has only been in effect since March; the Jones Act has been on the books for more than a century. During those 100-plus years of protection from competition, American shipyards did not churn out a glut of new ships. Even the law's congressional defenders acknowledged as much, noting that "less than one percent of new commercial ships are built in the United States."

What the evidence does not support is the claim that the Jones Act, as currently written, is producing the strong domestic fleet that would justify its costs.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Puerto Rico is among the clearest examples of who pays the Jones Act's price in normal times. Even though the U.S. produces more LNG than any other nation, of the hundreds of LNG tankers worldwide, only one is Jones Act-compliant. As a result, Puerto Rico pays more for liquefied natural gas from the U.S. than does its neighbor, the Dominican Republic — even though Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory.

During the waiver, bulk propane reached Puerto Rico from Texas and Pennsylvania for the first time ever. That supply chain did not exist under the Jones Act. It materialized the moment it was legally allowed.

What Happens in Mid-August

The 90-day extension runs out in mid-August. Unless Trump issues another waiver or Congress acts, the Jones Act snaps back into full effect and those supply chains close again.

The law has survived reform attempts for decades, backed by a coalition of labor unions, domestic shipbuilders, and lawmakers from shipyard districts.

The unresolved question is whether 90 days of documented results — 31 million barrels moved and dormant routes revived — will change that political calculus at all.