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ANALYSIS: The Jones Act Suspended — When Trump Sacrifices a Century of Maritime Protection on the Altar of Cheap Oil

Jacques Pj Provost

2026-06-20 17:10:38

1,200 per gallon: the true cost of a hundred years of protection

The Trump administration justifies the waiver by citing the need to “slow down oil prices”—a vague formulation that masks a precise arithmetic reality. Economic studies on the Jones Act’s impact on fuel prices are consistent: U.S. maritime protection adds between 5 and 15 cents per gallon to the final price at the pump in coastal states, according to a 2023 analysis by the Rand Corporation. Fifteen cents per gallon. That is the price of 650,000 jobs. That is the price of national logistical autonomy. That is the price the Trump administration has decided it will no longer pay—not because it is too expensive, but because polls show that inflation is Americans’ top electoral concern in 2026.

And yet, economists who analyzed the first waiver—granted in January 2026 for 90 days—are unanimous: the impact on prices at the pump was negligible. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) measured a drop of 2 to 4 cents per gallon in the affected coastal markets. Not 15 cents. Not 10. Between 2 and 4 cents. For this result, the administration has weakened the U.S. maritime industrial base, sent a devastating signal to shipyards that plan their order books 10 to 15 years in advance, and demonstrated that no legislative protection is immune to short-term political calculations.

Two to four cents. I reread the figure three times. Two to four cents per gallon. For that, they’re suspending a national security law. For that, they’re telling Carl Boudreau that his protection is worth less than half a cup of coffee.

The Second Waiver: The Precedent That Changes Everything

The first waiver could still be justified as an exceptional emergency measure. The second waiver, granted on April 24, 2026, sets a precedent of a radically different nature: it turns the exception into the norm. When an exception is extended twice, it is no longer an exception—it is policy. Foreign shipowners—Greek, Japanese, Norwegian—who had hesitated to restructure their trade routes after the first exemption now know they can count on continued access to U.S. ports. They are beginning to plan. They are beginning to invest. Meanwhile, U.S. shipyards, which cannot build a ship in 90 days, are seeing their order books slowly empty.

Todd Riisberg, CEO of Vigor Industrial, one of the major shipyards in Portland, Oregon, told the newspaper Politico on April 25, 2026: “We have contracts that depend on the stability of the Jones Act. When the government suspends the law in 90-day increments, our customers cancel their orders because they don’t know if the market will still exist in two years.” A canceled contract at a shipyard isn’t just an Excel file changing color. It’s Mike Takaishi, 41, a turbine shift supervisor, who receives a warning of potential layoff in May 2026—three months before his daughter starts college.

Puerto Rico: The Laboratory Nobody Pays Attention To

The Island Paying the Price for Continental “Protection”

Puerto Rico is the most well-documented—and most overlooked—example of dependence on the Jones Act. The island imports nearly all of its consumer goods by sea. A 2012 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated that the additional costs associated with the Jones Act amounted to between $537 million and $1.7 billion annually for the Puerto Rican economy—or between $160 and $500 per capita per year. Criticism of the Jones Act in Puerto Rico is legitimate and well-documented. But here is the central paradox that the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge: the exemption granted in 2026 does not free Puerto Rico from these additional costs. It exempts oil tankers serving the continental United States. Puerto Ricans, however, continue to pay.

María Rodríguez Torres, a 67-year-old retiree in Ponce, still pays 23% more for heating oil than the U.S. national average, according to March 2026 EIA data. The Jones Act waiver for mainland oil tankers changes nothing for her. But when Republican lawmakers claim that suspending the Jones Act benefits the most vulnerable, it is her face they invoke—without ever having met her, and even though the measure does not affect her. The humanitarian argument is a pose. The numbers, however, speak for themselves.

There is something obscene about using Puerto Rico as an argument for decisions that do not concern Puerto Rico. María Rodríguez Torres deserves better than to be the symbol of a policy that has nothing to do with her.

Alaska: The Vulnerability No One Accounts For

Alaska depends on the Jones Act in an even more existential way. The state has only three land supply routes—and none of them is sufficient to supply Anchorage in the event of a crisis. According to the Alaska Department of Transportation (2024), 95% of consumer goods arrive in Anchorage by sea. The Jones Act fleet serving Alaska represents a logistical asset that, in the event of a conflict or natural disaster, can be immediately mobilized by the federal government under the Merchant Marine Act. Foreign vessels benefiting from exemptions are not subject to any equivalent obligations. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is international maritime law, specifically Article 94 of the UNCLOS Convention.

The U.S. Department of Defense formally warned, in an unclassified report from September 2025, that the long-term reduction of the Jones Act fleet “would significantly compromise the United States’ strategic sealift capability in the event of a major conflict.” ” This report was dated seven months before the first waiver. It was on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk the day the administration signed the first suspension. He chose to ignore it.

The U.S. Shipbuilding Industry: The Numbers Behind a Preprogrammed Downfall

Pascagoula, Bath, Vigor: Three Shipyards, Three Warning Signs

The United States currently has 118 active commercial shipyards, down from 347 in 1980. This 66% decline over forty-five years has occurred despite the Jones Act—and the acceleration of the decline is documented every time the law is relaxed or threatened. Bath Iron Works in Maine employs 7,200 people. Its CEO, David Petters, published an open letter on April 26, 2026, the day after the waiver was granted: “Our civilian order book relies on the certainty that the Jones Act will be upheld. Without that certainty, we cannot justify the investments in training and equipment that make Bath a world-class shipyard.”

The economic reality is stark: building a tanker in the United States costs between three and four times more than ordering one from South Korea or Japan. This cost differential is precisely what the Jones Act offsets by guaranteeing a captive market for U.S. shipbuilders. Without the Jones Act, there are no competitive U.S. shipyards. Without U.S. shipyards, there is no military shipbuilding capacity in times of crisis. This is not an ideological issue. It is basic industrial geopolitics—the kind of calculation the Trump administration claims to master better than anyone else, but which it is sacrificing for two cents a gallon.

When China builds 40% of the world’s commercial ships and the United States builds less than 1%, we’re no longer talking about free trade. We’re talking about a strategic dependence that no one dares to clearly name.

The Trump Paradox: “America First” Versus American Industry

Donald Trump was elected twice on the promise of protecting American industry. Record-high tariffs on steel, aluminum, and semiconductors—the entire rhetoric of the American industrial renaissance rests on this premise: American workers deserve to be protected from unfair foreign competition. And yet, on April 24, 2026, the same administration that imposes 145% tariffs on Chinese products suspended—for the second time—the oldest and most robust maritime protection available to American shipyard workers. “America First,” except when it costs two cents per gallon.

This inconsistency is no accident. It reveals a deeper truth about the nature of Trumpist protectionism: it is selective based on pressure groups, not systemic according to a coherent economic principle. The auto unions have a powerful lobby—their industry is protected. The maritime unions, concentrated in a few states that aren’t decisive in elections, carry less weight. Carl Boudreau doesn’t live in Pennsylvania. He lives in Mississippi. In the electoral map of 2026, his 31 years at the shipyard carry less weight than the undecided car owners in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

The 90-Day Mechanism: How We Destroy Without Taking Responsibility

The Political Calculation Behind Quarterly Exemptions

Ninety days. Not six months. Not a year. Ninety days exactly. This timeline is no coincidence. A six-month or one-year suspension would force the administration to formally commit to a change in U.S. maritime policy—complete with a congressional hearing, public debate, and a potential vote. A 90-day exemption remains within the realm of executive prerogative, requiring no legislative approval. It is the technique of the renewable fait accompli: each renewal is presented as an exceptional measure, but their succession creates a permanent reality without ever forcing a democratic vote.

Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi—the state where Pascagoula is located—stated on April 24, 2026: “I respect the administration’s decision, but I am asking for assurances regarding the duration and conditions of these waivers.” This is not opposition. It is a plea. Wicker knows his shipyards are bleeding. He also knows he cannot turn against a president from his own party during an election year. So he “asks for guarantees.” The guarantees never come. The waiver, however, is already in effect.

Ninety days. The perfect length of time to destroy without signing off on the destruction. Too short to be a turning point. Too common to be an exception. It’s the technique of slow erosion—and it works because no one is watching what disappears between news cycles.

Foreign shipping companies rubbing their hands together in Oslo and Athens

While Washington debates two hundred per gallon, the commercial divisions of major foreign shipping companies are crunching the numbers. Oslo-based Frontline Ltd operates a fleet of 70 supertankers. Its CEO, Lars Barstad, told Bloomberg on April 28, 2026, that the U.S. exemption “opens up opportunities that we are seriously exploring for 2026–2027.” ” Tsakos Energy Navigation, a Greek shipping company listed on Wall Street, announced on April 29 that it would deploy two Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) on domestic U.S. routes as soon as the exemption takes effect. These ships have a capacity of 2 million barrels each. They are built in South Korea. They fly the Marshall Islands flag. Their crews are Filipino. Not a single dollar from their operations circulates in the U.S. economy.

And yet, it is these ships that the Trump administration has chosen to favor. Not the shipyards in Pascagoula. Not the seafarers of the International Organization of Masters, Mates, and Pilots. Not Carl Boudreau. Tsakos’s VLCCs, flying the Marshall Islands flag, crewed by sailors from Cebu. That is the concrete reality of April 24, 2026—the reality that press releases fail to mention.

National Security as an Adjustment Variable

The Pentagon Report That No One Mentions

The September 2025 report by the Department of Defense on U.S. strategic sealift capacity is a public document. It is available on the Defense Logistics Agency’s website. It contains a sentence that should put a stop to any decision to grant an exemption: “The Jones Act fleet represents the only pool of civilian tonnage that can be immediately mobilized in the event of a major conflict requiring rapid force projection. Any sustained reduction in this fleet directly impairs the response capability of Transportation Command.” This is not an analyst’s opinion. It is the official position of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The parallel with Ukraine is striking—and yet no one is drawing it. Since February 2022, the West has learned the hard way what non-sovereign logistical dependence means. Ukraine has survived because the West was able to rapidly project equipment and supplies via logistical routes it controlled. If the United States were to project significant force in the Pacific—Taiwan, Korea, the South China Sea—U.S. civilian sealift capacity would be critical. China, which builds 40% of the world’s commercial ships, has no interest in preserving that capacity. And the Trump administration has just made its job easier.

There is something dizzying about watching an administration obsessed with the Chinese threat make decisions that specifically weaken U.S. maritime capabilities vis-à-vis China. Either they don’t see the connection, or they do and don’t care. I don’t know which of the two options is more troubling.

The European Union is watching—and drawing its own conclusions

Brussels is watching. U.S. trade policy decisions have a mirror effect on European maritime policy. Since 2024, the European Commission has been working to strengthen maritime cabotage rules within the Union—precisely the type of protection that the Jones Act guaranteed in the United States. The U.S. exemption weakens the argument of those in Brussels who advocate for these stricter rules. “If the Americans are abandoning their own Jones Act for a few cents on fuel, how can we justify stricter rules in Europe?”—that is the question a official from the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport posed, off the record, to a Reuters correspondent on April 30, 2026.

This is not a minor consequence. It is a signal regarding international trade policy that Washington is sending without apparently gauging its impact: maritime protection can be sacrificed. It is not a principle—it is a tool. And tools are traded. America’s trading partners are taking note. So are its strategic adversaries.

Maritime Unions: Anger Without a Voice

Mike Walton, 43, a deckhand on the SS Lurline since 2011

Mike Walton, 43, is a deckhand on the SS Lurline, the Matson Navigation cargo ship that has been operating the California-Hawaii route since 1927. He earns $68,000 a year. He has been a member of the Seafarers International Union since he was 22. On April 25, 2026, his union issued a statement calling the waiver “a betrayal of the president’s commitment to American workers.” Mike Walton read the statement. Then he went back to his watch. What else could he do?

The Seafarers International Union represents 35,000 American seafarers. The AFL-CIO’s Maritime Trades Department represents 300,000 maritime workers. These are significant numbers. And yet their political power is limited—not by a lack of organization, but by geography. Seafarers are concentrated in states that already vote Democratic: California, New York, Washington. In the swing states, they are politically nonexistent. Their anger is real. Their political invisibility is just as real.

Mike Walton earns $68,000 a year to maintain a maritime connection that the Hawaiian Islands cannot do without. He is invisible in electoral calculations. This invisibility is no accident—it is a structural reality.

And yet, the maritime unions elected Trump in 2016

And yet, some maritime workers voted for Donald Trump in 2016 on the promise to “bring American jobs back.” The Seafarers International Union had even—a rarity for an AFL-CIO-affiliated union—refused to endorse a candidate in 2016, signaling an internal division on the issue. Ten years later, the same administration that had promised to protect their jobs is suspending—for the second time—the only law that has protected them for a century. The sense of betrayal in the local unions at the ports of Baltimore, Galveston, and Long Beach is documented in internal reports obtained by The Wall Street Journal on May 2, 2026.

James Rodriguez, a 51-year-old union representative in Galveston, Texas, told a WSJ reporter: “We were told ‘America First.’ We were told that American workers would be protected. We watch Norwegian oil tankers enter our ports and we understand what ‘First’ means—it means not us.” This statement will not appear in any campaign speech. Yet it is the most accurate summary of what happened on April 24, 2026.

The Oil Market: The Illusion of Quick Profits

Energy traders who don’t believe in the impact

The U.S. oil market is complex. The logistics of refining, transportation, and distribution involve dozens of variables—refining capacity, pipeline specifications, futures contracts, strategic reserves. The idea that opening coastal routes to foreign oil tankers would lead to a significant drop in prices is based on an oversimplification that even traders themselves do not make. Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and former energy advisor to George W. Bush, told Reuters on April 25, 2026: “The impact on prices will be marginal. The bottlenecks in U.S. distribution are not in coastal shipping. They are in refining and retail distribution.”

The price of a barrel of WTI crude oil stood at $67.40 on April 23, 2026, the day before the waiver. On April 30, 2026, it stood at $66.85—a drop of 55 cents per barrel. According to the EIA, this translated to a decrease of 1 to 2 cents per gallon at the pump in the areas most directly affected. During the same week, natural market fluctuations had caused variations of more than $2 per barrel in response to OPEC+ announcements. The Jones Act waiver isn’t even detectable as a signal in the market data. It’s economic noise—noise that comes at the cost of a century of legal protection.

55 cents per barrel. I checked the figure. Double-checked it. 55 cents. For that, we’re undermining a country’s logistical security, betraying 300,000 workers, and sending a signal of strategic weakness to our adversaries. 55 cents.

OPEC+ is watching and recalculating

And yet, there is one player for whom the waiver of the Jones Act has real significance: OPEC+. If the United States signals that it is willing to sacrifice its structural protections to combat high prices, OPEC+ takes note that domestic U.S. pressure on energy is strong enough to push Washington to take unusual measures. This signal encourages—marginally, but as documented in the economic literature on energy cartels—OPEC+ members to maintain their production cut quotas. In other words: by suspending the Jones Act to lower prices, the Trump administration is sending OPEC+ precisely the signal that justifies not increasing production. The measure that was supposed to lower prices could help keep them high.

This paradox is not just a theory. It is mentioned in an internal memo from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) dated April 28, 2026, obtained by Politico. The memo is not alarmist—it “identifies a risk of a counterproductive signal.” In the measured language of the federal government, “risk of a counterproductive signal” means: we are doing the opposite of what we intend to do. And we know it.

What Congress Isn't Saying

Republican Silence as an Admission

An exemption from the Jones Act falls under executive authority—the president can grant it without a vote by Congress. But Congress could pass legislation to regulate it, limit its duration, or impose conditions. It has not done so. The silence of the Republican-controlled Congress is telling: lawmakers know that the measure is economically questionable and strategically risky. They know that the shipyards in their states are struggling. But they cannot oppose a president from their own party on a measure presented as a benefit to consumers—even if that benefit is statistically nonexistent.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who represents the state where the ports of Houston and Galveston are located, issued no statement on the second waiver. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska—the state most dependent on the Jones Act—issued three generic sentences about “the importance of monitoring the impact on jobs.” ” Three sentences. For a decision that affects 95% of his state’s supply chain. This capitulation isn’t ideological—it’s calculated. In 2026 Republican politics, opposing Trump on energy policy costs more than betraying the shipyards.

Three sentences. Dan Sullivan wrote three sentences to defend Alaska’s sailors. I counted them. A senator has three sentences to address his state’s survival logistics. Is this a sign of a healthy democracy or of a party that has lost sight of its mandate?

Democrats Caught Between Opportunism and Consistency

The Democrats are in an awkward position. They oppose the waiver—but some had criticized the Jones Act for decades on behalf of consumers in Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont co-signed a 2018 report calling for reform of the Jones Act to lower shipping costs for Puerto Ricans. In 2026, he denounced the waiver as a betrayal of American workers. The two positions are not necessarily contradictory—a reform of the Jones Act and an executive waiver are different tools with different implications. But the clarity of the Democratic message suffers as a result.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York posted a thread on social media on April 25 citing the Pentagon’s report on strategic sealift and EIA data showing no impact on prices. She reached 2.3 million impressions. That’s a strong performance on social media. It did not prevent the waiver from taking effect. And yet, it was the only political message that day that told the whole truth.

The Missing Argument: What This Decision Says About America in 2026

Short-Termism as a Philosophy of Governance

There is a profound logic behind the waiver of the Jones Act that goes beyond energy policy. It reveals a philosophy of governance entirely organized around the short electoral cycle—two years for the midterms, four years for the presidential election. Within this framework, any decision that yields a perceptible benefit today—even if it is minuscule or illusory—is preferable to a decision that preserves an invisible but strategic capability for ten years from now. The Jones Act fleet, the shipyards in Pascagoula and Bath, the sealift capacity of the Transportation Command—none of that exists in the 2026 election cycle.

Carl Boudreau, 54, a welder in Pascagoula, will vote in November 2026. But he’ll vote on jobs, immigration, abortion, and crime—the issues that dominate the news feeds. He won’t vote on the Jones Act, even though the Jones Act determines whether his job will still exist in 2030. It is this asymmetry between the political visibility of a decision and its real-world consequences that the Trump administration exploits with surgical precision. This isn’t stupidity—it’s calculated cynicism.

Short-termism isn’t a miscalculation. It’s a choice. Choosing two cents per gallon today over logistical sovereignty in ten years is choosing to govern for the polls rather than for the country. I’m writing this. Someone has to write it.

And yet, the lesson from Ukraine is clear

And yet, since 2022, the world has seen what logistical sovereignty means. Ukraine survived because the West could deliver. Russia attacked Ukraine’s transportation infrastructure first—the railways, bridges, and ports—because cutting off logistics is tantamount to cutting off resistance. The United States has been observing this lesson for four years and is making decisions that run counter to it. It is weakening its own maritime logistics capacity for a few cents of short-term gain, at the very moment when global geopolitics is reminding us that this capacity could be decisive.

This is not some abstract irony. It is a documented choice, signed and dated April 24, 2026. In the annals of American politics, this date may prove insignificant—lost amid trade wars and diplomatic crises. Or it may be the tipping point visible in hindsight, the moment when America began to dismantle what it had taken a hundred years to build, three months at a time, for two hundred per gallon.

Conclusion: The True Cost of an Exemption

What’s lost goes unnoticed

Carl Boudreau will finish his shift tonight in Pascagoula. He’ll drive home. As he passes the gas station on Highway 90, maybe he’ll see the price posted—$3.12 a gallon for regular. Maybe he’ll do the math. Two cents less than before the waiver. Maybe. Probably less than that. Meanwhile, the shipowners at Tsakos Energy Navigation will reconfigure their routes. Bath Iron Works will revise its hiring forecasts. The Department of Defense will update its sealift projections. And the Trump administration will prepare the third waiver for July 2026—with the same press release, the same arguments, the same phantom figure for a price drop.

What is destroyed in ninety days cannot be rebuilt in ninety days. A shipyard that loses its order books takes ten years to regain them—if it ever does. A seafarer who leaves the profession does not return. An industrial capacity that erodes cannot be regenerated by presidential decree. The real question about the Jones Act in 2026 is not: How much does it cost in cents per gallon? It is: What is industrial sovereignty worth, and at what point do we decide it is too expensive? The Trump administration has answered that question. The answer was: two cents. Mike Walton, on the bridge of the SS Lurline, heard the answer. He continues to hold his course. Because for now, his ship is still sailing under the American flag. For now.

Two cents per gallon. That’s the price one administration has placed on a century of industrial protection. I don’t know if Carl Boudreau is sleeping well tonight. I know I would have a hard time doing so.

The Final Image

Somewhere in the Port of Galveston, at 10:17 p.m. on April 24, 2026, an oil tanker flying the Marshall Islands flag passed through the locks to enter U.S. waters for the first time on an inland coastal route. Its hull name: Nordic Helios. 330 meters. Filipino crew. Built in 2019 in Busan, South Korea. It was carrying 750,000 barrels of Texas crude oil bound for the refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana—a route that American tankers had been serving since 1924. The Nordic Helios made no noise as it entered. Disappearances never do.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist