Efforts to Repeal American Shipping Laws Only Aid China

CommentaryAmerica’s shipping industry isn’t a whipping boy—it’s one of our strengths. Sadly, the Jones Act, which promotes U.S. shippers, is treated like it is. Irrational political voices have argued that repealing the law would do many things, but policymakers should be cautious about taking such a drastic step. Some have asserted, for example, that repealing the Jones Act would end traffic congestion in U.S. cities. Even average Americans who don’t study traffic patterns or city planning know that repealing a law that simply requires shipping between two or more U.S. ports to be done by American ships with American crews isn’t the cause of traffic jams. Others blame the Jones Act for increasing the cost of natural gas and other petroleum products. They claim that if we only allowed foreign ships with unvetted and unknown foreign crews to have unfettered access to America’s inland waterways, gas, diesel, and natural gas prices would suddenly drop. But this silly theory omits some very important facts. Chief among them is that pipelines are by far the cheapest, safest, and most environmentally friendly way to move oil and natural gas across the United States. So if you’re frustrated by high energy costs, supporting pipelines makes a lot more sense than jumping on the fact-free bandwagon of Jones Act detractors. What repeal would do is aid China, which has an ambitious plan for world domination and is trying to monopolize global shipping. The totalitarian regime is strategically buying and controlling ports worldwide and is slowly trying to place a noose around America’s neck so that it won’t even have to fight an all-out war to defeat us. Imagine helping China gain control of our national shipping infrastructure. That is precisely what the Jones Act prevents. China heavily subsidizes its shipping industry, eliminating the need for innovation that would normally occur through marketplace competition. A healthy industry sees innovation, and critics of the Jones Act don’t understand that their actions will cripple the U.S. shipping industry. A China Ocean Shipping Company container ship passes the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Calif., on May 14, 2019. (Eric Risberg/AP Photo) The Jones Act merely requires that if you want to deliver goods between two or more U.S. ports (without visiting a foreign port in between), you must be an American ship and have an American crew. This simple law provides significant national security, homeland security, and border security benefits to America and ensures that our military has access to a viable shipbuilding and repair industry. To be blunt, we cannot outsource our military’s shipbuilding and ship repair needs to China or others. While the American shipbuilding and shipping industries are smaller than China’s, ours are more innovative because they must compete within the United States for business and find ways to better serve the public and reduce costs. They can’t go to the government for a handout to cover their losses. Innovation is America’s ace in the shipping hole. Smart ship technology is being developed here at home. It is making shipping more efficient and potentially safer, too. A number of high-tech innovations are being deployed on American ships, such as artificial intelligence, big data analysis, employing the Internet of Things on ships, usage of drones, and autonomous control (under the right circumstances)—to name only a few. These can help manage shipping so that we cut down on costs and improve delivery times. Some studies suggest that as much as one-third of shipping space is unused. New technologies could help maximize the usage of that space—thus increasing shipping capacity, lowering costs, and making delivery times faster. But an industry that is under attack won’t invest the billions required to develop and adopt these new technologies. Healthy industries hire more workers, pay their workers better, provide employment stability and security, and can invest in future technologies to help keep them ahead of the curve. We’ve seen an oil industry slowdown mostly because it has been threatened with regulatory havoc. There’s no reason to invest billions when government policymakers are gunning to put you out of business. To be clear, threatening regulatory havoc upon our shipping industry only benefits China’s ambitions. So we need to be smarter than that. Recently, the Interlake Steamship Company put into service the first Great Lakes freight ship in almost 40 years, the Mark W. Barker, a freighter longer than two football fields. That’s good news—American shippers are investing in the next generation of shipping. More of this needs to be encouraged. A plan that allows spies, saboteurs, equipment, and weapons to be brought into America’s heartland will prove costly in the long run. A strong and thriving shipping industry is great for the homeland and consumers and should be supported. Views expressed in this article are the opinion