Should the US build requirement of the Jones Act be abolished?

[Hawespiper]

@cpgrabow

Newport News, HII Pascagoula, Bath Iron Works — none have built commercial ships in at least 25 years. NASSCO hasn’t delivered a commercial ship since 2020 and has none on their orderbook. Bollinger/VT Halter not since 2019.

And yet these businesses stay in business…how is that? It’s because they don’t depend on building commercial ships. But I get it, I take blame for not being specific in my assertion about shipyards. I’m referring to large COMMERCIAL shipyards in the business of building large, ocean-going COMMERCIAL ships would go out of business on day one if the US build requirement were removed. I guess I assumed that would be implied, but apparently not.

@cpgrabow, rather than cutting/pasting each of your points that I take issue with, I think our differences can be summed up as follows: Your arguments for abolishing the US build requirement are all economic. I will fully admit your points are valid from an economic standpoint.

What you and other advocates of unrestrained capitalism don’t care about (to a novice, I would say ‘what you don’t understand’, but I know you fully understand this topic) is the reason for the JA as a whole (which vitally includes the US build requirement) is NOT economic.

I agree that arguments can be made that the results are not good enough/we can accomplish the goals of the JA better. Abolishing the US build requirement is the exact opposite of that. Any and all attempts to call for that need to be recognized as the existential threat to the USMM that they are.

Ok…I said I wasn’t going to copy/paste your points, but this one is particularly egregious:

@cpgrabow

I don’t see how that follows at all. There is no US built requirement for aircraft, yet where are the voices clamoring to remove the labor provisions of US air cabotage laws?

‘It follows’ because look around…what other high labor cost country allows cheaper foreign built vessels to ply their coastwise routes but requires their high-cost domestic seafarers? (And if you CAN cite one, please also include the other, many more numerous counter examples).

@cpgrabow

Anyone who thinks the JA frees the US from dependence on foreigners for its shipbuilding needs is dreaming.

Once again, I agree with you as things stand today. The difference is that you advocate giving up and becoming completely at the mercy of “countries of concern” as the SHIPS Act refers to them. I say we need to fight for what little autonomy we have now and expand upon it.

@cpgrabow

But I think the bigger issue here is the trade-off.

Agree completely. Continue to be beholden to china or not. We all have to decide which side of this trade-off we want to be on.