Without the Jones Act, communist China could crew the Mississippi
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?
The potential consequences of a maritime failure can dwarf those of even a catastrophic highway accident. A large oceangoing vessel can weigh tens of thousands of tons and carry enormous quantities of fuel, chemicals, containers, or other cargo. A loss of propulsion or steering can threaten bridges, ports, refineries, waterfront communities, and environmentally sensitive waterways.
Americans saw the scale of that risk in Baltimore in 2024, when the 984-foot Singapore-flagged containership Dali lost electrical power, propulsion, and steering and struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Six highway workers died, and the bridge collapsed. The National Transportation Safety Board eventually determined that a loose electrical connection caused the blackout. But the disaster demonstrated what happens when a massive vessel loses control in a strategically important American harbor.
That is one reason the Jones Act deserves to be understood as more than a century-old shipping regulation. The law requires vessels carrying merchandise between two U.S. points to be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, and coastwise-qualified, with U.S.-citizen crewing requirements. It does not prohibit foreign ships from entering American ports. Foreign-flag vessels conduct enormous amounts of international trade with the United States every day, but they cannot make multiple stops at U.S. ports and sail up our inland waterways.
The Jones Act reserves domestic point-to-point maritime commerce for American vessels, operators, and crews. That distinction has important national-security consequences.
America’s waterways are part of the homeland
America is not merely a coastal nation. The Army Corps of Engineers maintains roughly 25,000 miles of navigable channels across the country, including approximately 12,000 miles of commercially active inland and intracoastal waterway system. These waterways reach deeply into the American heartland, connecting ports, agricultural regions, energy facilities, manufacturing centers, and major metropolitan areas.
Domestic vessels move through areas containing bridges, pipelines, petroleum facilities, chemical plants, and other critical infrastructure.
But there is a meaningful security difference between permitting foreign vessels to deliver international commerce to American ports and turning routine domestic commerce between American points over to foreign-flagged vessels whose ownership structures, employment systems, and flag-state oversight may be based abroad.
Domestic commerce under the Jones Act keeps that activity within a U.S.-flagged maritime system and sustains an American maritime workforce. That deserves consideration as a homeland security benefit.
The industrial base argument may be even more important
The larger national security argument concerns something America cannot recreate overnight during a war: shipyards, maritime suppliers, skilled tradespeople, and merchant mariners.
Congressional Research Service analysis describes the national-security goals behind the Jones Act as maintaining three things: a U.S.-controlled commercial fleet that can supplement military sealift, an American merchant-mariner workforce capable of crewing reserve military vessels, and domestic shipbuilding and repair capacity.
That matters because maritime capability is not simply a collection of ships. It is welders, marine engineers, electricians, naval architects, machinists, shipfitters, repair facilities, dry docks, and complex supply chains.
When those capabilities disappear, Congress cannot recreate them by passing an emergency appropriation after a war begins.
The U.S. already faces serious maritime capacity challenges. CRS reported that the oceangoing Jones Act fleet declined from 181 ships in 2000 to approximately 93, while several specialized vessel categories are absent altogether from the U.S.-built commercial fleet. That should make the issue more — not less — important.
The Maritime Administration explicitly identifies domestic shipping laws such as the Jones Act as part of the country’s national-security maritime system. MARAD also maintains the Ready Reserve Force and other programs designed to ensure that commercial maritime capabilities can support the War Department during war or national emergencies.
A nation that cannot build, repair, maintain, and crew ships is strategically dependent on nations that can. And in a world in which China has become a dominant global shipbuilder, dependence on overseas maritime capacity is no longer merely an economic question.
The trucking comparison is worth considering
Duffy’s Transportation Department recently finalized tighter rules governing non-domiciled commercial licenses. DOT says the changes are intended to verify immigration and employment status more reliably and ensure the fitness of drivers operating commercial vehicles on American roads.
The underlying principle is straightforward: The government has a legitimate interest in knowing who is operating enormous commercial machinery inside the U.S. and whether that person is properly qualified and accountable.
That principle does not suddenly become irrelevant when the vehicle floats.
Indeed, the maritime consequences can be substantially larger.
A tractor-trailer accident can close an interstate.
A major marine casualty can close a port.
A truck can damage a bridge.
A vessel weighing tens of thousands of tons can destroy one.
A highway accident may spill hundreds of gallons of fuel or hazardous cargo. A tanker casualty can cause an environmental disaster that affects an entire coastline or waterway.
National security matters a great deal
Without the Jones Act, America could experience the communist Chinese regime taking over U.S. domestic shipping, and be fine with their vessels not only carrying grain and cargo, but also carrying spies, operatives, and weapons, and deploying inside America’s heartland high-tech listening and data-capture electronics. Clearly, the security implications of domestic maritime policy should not be dismissed.
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The question is not simply whether a foreign-built and foreign-crewed vessel might carry a particular cargo more cheaply. It is also what value the U.S. places on maintaining domestic shipbuilding and repair capabilities, American mariners, U.S.-controlled domestic maritime commerce, and a transportation system capable of supporting the military during a national emergency.
The deeper question is whether America considers maritime capability strategically important enough to maintain at home. In an increasingly dangerous world, that national-security question deserves far more attention.
George Landrith is the president of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute and the author of Let Freedom Ring…Again: Can Self-Evident Truths Save America from Further Decline?
