After a brief suspension during the moment of maximum public outcry, the Trump administration earlier this month allowed the Jones Act to go back into effect restraining trade between Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland. According to this WSJ editorial, Puerto Ricans are paying the price:
Ricky Castro is a food and beverage wholesaler and president of Puerto Rico’s Chamber of Food Marketing, Industry and Distribution, known as MIDA, which boasts 200 members across the island. This month MIDA conducted an informal survey of 15 members and found there are roughly 1,400 containers of their provisions sitting in U.S. ports, waiting to be shipped to Puerto Rico.
Mr. Castro attributes the delay to the Jones Act, which mandates that U.S.-flagged, -built and -manned carriers conduct all shipping between U.S. ports. This means an oligopoly of three companies—Crowley Maritime Corp., TOTE Maritime and Trailer Bridge Inc.—conduct the vast majority of the protected trade between the mainland and the island, at inflated costs on aging ships. The ocean-going Jones Act fleet numbers a mere 99 vessels, compared to thousands available from foreign-flagged carriers.
5 Comments
In the world of sports officiating, there are new rules every year. Some are good. Many are bad. There are two ways of addressing the bad rules. One is to not call them and just let the infractions slide.
The second way, and one that I believe is more effective, is to call the offensive rules. Let the coaches, the players, the fans, etc feel the idiocy of horrible rules. The affected people will start to scream and yell to the people who made the idiotic rule in the first place.
That is my opinion on this situation as well.
The Jones Act was perhaps well meaning at some point, but it has outlived its usefulness. If the administration – any administration – suspends the Act, that suspension does not address the basic issue that the Act itself is flawed and should be repealed.
Every call for an administration to suspend the Act should be met with “if the Act is bad, let Congress repeal it.”
That won’t happen because it is easier to blame one person (ie the sitting President) than the 535 members of Congress who really could make a difference in this issue.
While people may say that Trump is wrong and playing with people’s well being, the fact of the matter is that members of Congress are doing the same thing in order to curry favor with labor groups. They are playing politics with the well being of people and because it doesn’t affect their ability to be re-elected, they don’t care.
Suspending the Act doesn’t cure or resolve the underlying problem with the Act itself.
Gitarcarver…spot on. Unfortunately the members of Congress have not been able to agree on issues larger than “National Doughnut Day” for years.
Or split along party lines to point fingers at each other and call names.
The Jones Act needs to be repealed. Then maybe Puerto Rico will be able to develop a sustainable economy.
“Suspending the Act doesn’t cure or resolve the underlying problem with the Act itself.”
True, but consider this:
With such a short suspension Trump is signaling that he doesn’t see any underlying problem with the Act itself.
On top of that, given all his other protectionist rhetoric, he would probably veto any attempt to outright repeal the Jones act or even any attempt at significant modifications such as exempting island states and territories from the act.
“the 535 members of Congress who really could make a difference in this issue.”
Only if there were enough votes in support of a change to override a Presidential veto.
With such a short suspension Trump is signaling that he doesn’t see any underlying problem with the Act itself.
So now the issue is the length of the suspension rather than whether the law is bad or not?
It is clear that you are going down a path that I am not willing to travel. You, as are others, are trying to make this a political issue.
Either the Jones Act is a good law and good public policy or it is not. It’s that simple.
This act didn’t pass on Trump’s watch. It hasn’t even been renewed on Trump’s watch. Lots of people claimed Obama was the antichrist because he failed to enforce statutes. Why is the Jones Act any different than any of the laws that Obama did not enforce? And why do you think this president should be held to account for not enforcing the law rather than just giving folks a pass? Yes it’s stupid, yes it should be repealed, but it hasn’t been and until it has it is the law of the US.