As I posted earlier, there are strange, uneconomic trades that result from the high cost of building in the US. Gasoline to/from Canada is only one example, as shown. High cost US built ships lead shippers to get around the JA any way they can…using foreign flag ships. This nonsense would stop and more US flag vessels would deliver, say gasoline, from our US Gulf and East Coast refineries to US ports like NY, Boston, New Haven, Savannah, etc. Creating many more American mariner jobs.
What you’re describing in the map that you’ve drawn isn’t exactly an accurate depiction of petroleum movements in the US. This gives a better overview.
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The graphic is just a simple example of one absurdity brought about by the JA US build requirement.
Only took 2 threads and about 200 posts for you to add this to your add this to your arsenal.
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What have peoplehere done to support the Jones Act, and U.S. Flag shipping?
What do you thin can be done?
As I have posted, the only solution I see for increasing and modernizing the USMM is to allow foreign built ships into Jones Act trades…with American crew and ownership. Another would be by requiring ~10% of our exported petroleum and grain to be on US flag, non-JA vessels.
Both would be difficult to achieve, so we will probably continue wringing our hands and watching the USMM fleet decline even further.
BTW, ships are the only form of intra-American transportation that have to be US built…not airplanes, trucks or railroad equipment, because of the 102 year old Jones Act.
Let’s clear up something - the Jones Act does not, nor was it intended to, protect deep sea big ship type ocean crossing trade. It protects inland and US-US trade.
False. It’s the reason these coastwise and PR/AK/HI trade vessels even exist today. Also - do you have a reference for this? I didn’t know we had that many JA compliant deep sea commercial vessels. Does that count include LA/TX to FL tanker shipments and Intra West coast commerce? Plenty of the MSP/TSP vessels for example are not actually JA compliant, just US flag.
The reason the US doesn’t have a large internationally trading (US flagged) fleet is because of the cost to crew a vessel with Americans. From MARAD:
The Jones Act doesn’t apply (in terms of cabotage) to international trade at all. Doesn’t protect it. Doesn’t save it. Wasn’t designed to. A vessel can be flagged/crewed/classed/owned in the US, while not built here. The build requirement only applies to vessels operating in US to US trade. As the report shows, it’s primarily the costs associated with crewing that prevent internationally trading vessels from joining the US flag.
The JA market is not currently in demand for more big ship tonnage. Plus if there was, someone in the US would have already started building more vessels anyway; the JA market is lucrative, exclusive, and generally stable, compared to the international market. Removing the US build requirement will just reduce the value of the current fleet, effectively eliminate US shipyards, and adding no additional tonnage. It’s possible we’d see a faster replacement of old tonnage, but likely not noticably more tonnage overall.
The JA has been very effective. It’s one of the most comprehensive cabotage laws in the world, and has indeed kept plenty of US business, manufacturing, and jobs in the US. It’s only downside (for us mariners) is an older fleet than the rest of the world because it’s expensive to build here.
The US Virgin Island registry deal (I guess it died off?), was trying to bring back a US flag deep sea fleet. They wanted an internationally trading US flag fleet that wasn’t part of a government subsidy like MSP or TSP. There was a general lack of transparency (or maybe just a lack of a plan) and people were very wary of it. For one, the American MM Unions were strongly against it on the grounds that they saw future government contracts or subsidies going to these “other” US flagged vessels that were not built in the US or (maybe?) even crewed by foreigners.
On the point that S Korea shipyards pay similar wages to the US - do you have a reference for that as well? If that’s true why is building in the US so expensive? Is our shipbuilding tech that bad? Is it environmental regulations? Regulations in general? Unions? I’d need some evidence that Asian shipyards pay similarly to the US before I believe that.
Also look into airplanes a bit more. You can’t just build a plane in Europe and just bring it into the US to operate domestically. There’s some sort of tarrif or something.
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I think it’s literally all of them, isn’t it?
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If there is market demand for a particular trade (e.g. Savannah to PR) using high cost US-built JA ships, it stands to reason that this trade would expand if shipping costs were much lower on foreign built JA ships, creating more American mariner jobs.
As you point out, vessel opex on a ship crewed by Americans is more expensive than using foreign mariners; currently about a $15k/day difference (obtained from an operator of internationally trading US flag vessels). However the difference in daily capex for a US vs foreign built ship is much greater. For example: A tanker that costs $50 million to build in Korea would cost around $200 million to build in the US. The cost for amortizing this $150m difference over a ship life of 30 years at 8% interest and a scrap value of $2m is $36k/day.
So the building cost differential is the major factor, not crewing costs.
The actual number of deep sea Jones Act vessels as of January 2022 was 99. That is certainly not an impressive number, proving that the JA is NOT effective. The major reason US-built ships are more expensive than Korean-built ships is the huge differential in required man-hours. Korean automation and technology does this.
The VI flag was never going to work as it would have no/minimal cost savings.
And yes, you can buy an Airbus built in Europe, the same way as you can buy a Mercedes.
Just noting both Airbus and Mercedes have manufacturing/assembly plants here in the US.
That number seems high to me. Are you sure you’re not including the ships in MSP/TSP which are not Jones act compliant?
Source please
https://www.statista.com/statistics/646259/us-flag-oceangoing-privately-owned-jones-act-fleet-by-type/, but try doing your own homework
Makes no difference where the Airbus or Mercedes were made. You can use them for intrastate US commerce. Can’t do that with foreign-built ships.
That’s one option, OR you could just post links to back up the things you write here.
From your link:
“As of January 2022, there were some 56 tankers and 22 container ships in the Jones Act fleet.”
So that’s 78… Is there something behind that site’s paywall that accounts for an additional 21 ships to get to your number of
?
Also, even the 56 tankers number seems high to me… Behind the paywall does it say what the minimum gross tonnage is for a ship to make this list?
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22 Container ships? I have a hard time believing there are 22 Jones Act container ships.
99 or 78, the number is pitiful. Let’s take another example; cars to Hawaii from USA vs Korea. Although I do not know the exact numbers, the higher transportation cost from the US has to be giving Korean cars a cost advantage in Hawaii and hurting US manufacturers.
It’s a viable (if not low) number if they’re including con-ro type ships.
Matson:
5 in China run service
3 in Alaska service
4 in USWC-Hawaii service
3 C9’s in semi active/reserve service (not sure if they’re counting those)
Tote:
2 in Puerto Rico service
2 or 3 in Alaska service
Crowley:
2 (I think it’s 2) in Puerto Rico service
Pasha:
4-5 in USWC-Hawaii service
Couple steam ships in reserve service
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I guess your advice to do my own homework is solid since your homework had the wrong answers.
All the economic reasons you cite don’t change the fact that removing the US build requirement in the Jones act will immediately kill large US commercial yards. This is unacceptable, both to me and so far to our law makers.
I recognize your tactic of making your case to a mariner forum with the promise of an increase in shipping jobs.
However what I hope WE all recognize here is that if you and your ilk get your way on this issue you’ll be right back in some other forum crying about how expensive US mariners are and how foreigners could save the poor American consumer soooooo much money (and oh by the way, make us corporate guys even richer, but never mind that… We’re fighting for Joe Sixpack)
I realize I may very well be responding to a Chinese version of ChatGPT but your anti-American ideas still need rebutting.
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It doesn’t help that his name is an anagram of PRC (people’s republic of China), and 1972 is when US China trade relations were normalized. Hmm 
I know who he is, it’s his initials.