The Jones Act Makes Little Sense in a Globalized World

Late last month that rarest of commodities, a new U.S.-built commercial transport ship, completed its maiden voyage by entering the harbor of San Juan, Puerto Rico to deliver its cargo. CalledEl Coqu í, the vessel is among the world ’s first hybrid roll-on/roll-off container vessels—a “ConRo” in industry parlance—that is powered by liquefied natural gas. Supporters of the Jones Act, a protectionist law which mandates that ships transporting goods between U.S. ports be U.S.-owned, crewed, flagged, and built, have pointed to  El Coqu í as a symbol of the measure’s success. The President of the Shipbuilder’s Council of America cited “American skill and ingenuity, as well as critical laws like the Jones Act”in his remarks praising the new ship. A senior official with Crowley Maritime, which owns the ship,added that investments such asEl Coqu í“would not have been possible without the [Jones] Act.”What  El Coqu í truly represents is the outdated thinking behind this law.According to its supporters, the Jones Act helpsensure U.S. expertise in shipbuilding and a domestic capability that can be relied upon intimes of war. But asEl Coqu í demonstrates, it ’s unclear how much expertise the U.S. shipbuilding industry possesses or how purely American this capability really is. The vessel’s very DNA, for example, is more foreign than American, with design work largely performed by Finnish company Wärtsilä using a team mainly located in Poland and No...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs