Keeping Up with the Jones Act

Thinking morally Right or Wrong, not politically left or right demands repealing the Jones Act.

I just returned from a visit to The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, in many respects a first-world tropical paradise in a collectivist Caribbean hell-hole of a neighborhood—think Haiti and Cuba. But it’s an expensive island; with a GDP/capita less than half of the U.S. mainland average, the price levels disproportionately impact the standard of living for its 3 million inhabitants. And they’re voting with their feet: the population is down from 3.8 million in 2000, with New York and Florida reaping most of the benefits from its industrious migrants.

While many of the reasons for the exodus are self-inflicted, U.S. federal law adds insult to injury. Keeping up with the Joneses has always been expensive, but few have managed it for quite as long—or at quite the same cost—as the “family” behind the Jones Act, part of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. This antiquated piece of legislation still quietly dictates how goods move between American ports, what kind of ships they travel on, and who’s allowed to crew them. It is old enough to have witnessed Prohibition, the Great Depression, the moon landing, and the smartphone, yet it remains firmly in charge of your groceries, fuel, and building materials. Not bad for a law most Americans couldn’t pick out of a multiple-choice quiz.

At its core, the Jones Act is simple. Any cargo shipped between U.S. ports must travel on a vessel that is built in the United States, owned by Americans, flagged in the U.S., and crewed primarily by Americans. Miss even one requirement and the shipment is illegal. A foreign ship may deliver goods from overseas to one American port, but it cannot then carry those same goods to another American port; the cargo must disembark and wait for an approved ride.

The law emerged from the anxious aftermath of World War I. Lawmakers feared the United States lacked sufficient maritime capacity for national defense. A protected domestic shipbuilding industry and a robust merchant marine were seen as strategic necessities. In that historical context, charitably interpreted, the Jones Act may have made a certain kind of sense; it was designed as a shield against vulnerability. A century later, it operates more like a fence—one that you and I as Americans are required to pay for every time we shop.

The scope of the Jones Act reaches far beyond shipping companies and port authorities. Its effects are felt most acutely in places that depend on maritime transport not as a convenience, but as a lifeline: Hawaii, Alaska, and—yes, you guessed it—Puerto Rico (Guam, American Samoa and U.S. Virgin Islands are exempt). In these states and territory, the Act more so than for the rest of us quietly inflates the cost of living. Food, fuel, vehicles, and construction materials cost more—not because they are rare, but because the law forbids cheaper and more efficient ways of moving them.

The absurdities are easy to spot once you know where to look. Foreign ships routinely pass U.S. ports carrying goods, legally barred from making a domestic stop. It can be cheaper to ship oil from Texas to Canada and then back to the United States than to ship it directly from one American port to another. Even worse, the right ships may not be available: During a 2018 New England cold snap, energy companies were forced to import liquified natural gas (LNG) rather than getting it from the U.S. Gulf Coast, as no LNG tankers existed that met the requirements of the Jones Act.

So why does the Act endure? Because the “family” of interests opposed to repeal are well-organized, well-funded, and highly motivated. Domestic shipbuilders benefit from protection against foreign competition and have little incentive to welcome rivals who build ships more cheaply and efficiently. U.S.-flag shipping companies enjoy a legally enforced moat around their business. Maritime labor unions support the Act because it restricts competition for jobs and keeps wages artificially high for a relatively small number of workers. These groups form a durable coalition: concentrated benefits, dispersed costs, and a law obscure enough to avoid sustained public scrutiny.

Layered on top of these economic interests is a national-security argument that carries emotional weight. The Act’s defenders warn that repeal would weaken maritime readiness and leave the country dependent on foreign shipping in a crisis. This claim does not hold up under scrutiny as shipping capacity is readily available from our allies around the globe, but its rhetorical power is unfortunately undeniable. And hiding behind claims of “national security” is convenient for politicians who don’t want their financial backing scrutinized.

However, all of these arguments should be overshadowed by something more fundamental than corporatist industry preferences or statist policy traditions: the rights of individuals. The Jones Act does not exist to protect individual rights—our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. On the contrary, it violates those rights by prohibiting peaceful, voluntary exchange based solely on who built a ship, who owns it, and who crews it. If a business owner in Puerto Rico wants to hire a foreign-built ship to carry goods from Florida, and a shipowner is willing to provide that service, the Jones Act says no. Not because anyone is harmed, but because the transaction fails to serve a protected economic arrangement. That is the immoral consequence of the Jones Act.

In a free society, individuals are not tools for achieving collective economic outcomes. Our lives, labor, and property exist for our own sake. The right to trade—to buy, sell, contract, and cooperate voluntarily—is not a privilege granted by policymakers when convenient. It is an extension of the right to act on one’s own judgment. When the government blocks peaceful exchange to prop up favored industries, it reverses this principle. Citizens are compelled to serve goals not of their choosing.

The Jones Act is government coercion, plain and simple. It tells individuals that their freedom to trade exists only conditionally—only so long as it aligns with an approved economic plan. The higher prices paid by millions of consumers are not unfortunate side effects. They are the mechanism by which the law works.

Yes, all laws restrict freedom in some sense. But the distinction lies in purpose. Laws that prohibit murder, theft, and fraud, etc., protect individual rights. Laws that prohibit voluntary exchange violate them. The Jones Act belongs squarely in the latter category. Its longevity is not evidence of its virtue. It survives because its beneficiaries are visible and vocal, while its victims are scattered and anonymous. Every family paying more for groceries in Hawaii, every builder facing inflated material costs in Alaska, every household absorbing higher energy prices in Puerto Rico, and every U.S. mainland resident paying a few extra dollars here and there due to expensive coastal shipping options is subsidizing a protected few.

Repealing the Jones Act would be a morally Right act of justice strengthening the respect for and protection of individual rights, not hostility toward workers or national defense. It would be an affirmation of a basic moral truth: that peaceful people have the right to trade freely, using the means they judge best, without being conscripted into someone else’s morally Wrong, statist economic strategy.