We Must Guarantee America's Maritime Future
With President Donald J. Trump back in the White House, America is finally having its "America First" moment.
But does someone need to tell the Republican establishment gatekeepers at The Wall Street Journal? It seems that way.
Not only have they engaged in a war of words with our nation's 47th commander in chief, over his assertive trade negotiation strategies, they’ve even taken to publishing extensive praise of a liberal blue state governor for scapegoating his own bad energy policies on an America First federal law, one which prevents outsourcing.
You can’t make this up.
For years, powerful interests have bankrolled propaganda campaigns to repeal or weaken the Jones Act, America’s law requiring shipping in this country to be done by American crews on American-made ships under the American flag, paying American taxes.
The pro-outsourcing crowd cuts big checks to groups like the Cato Institute, to make their specious arguments on their behalf.
This likely includes foreign energy interests.
Cato and company have seen what happened to America’s manufacturing and pharmaceuticals industries — and it seems like they’ve loved it.
Now they want the same thing to happen to our shipbuilding and maritime sectors.
The Jones Act remains as the only thing standing between us and China's complete domination of U.S. shipping, which is the leading shipbuilder globally — and subsidizes their industry to the tune of $130 billion a year.
It isn't hard to see that, without the Jones Act, China would run the same playbook they ran against our steel industry and too many others — including our global shipping industry.
China would undercut our companies on cost and put them out of business in short order, gutting our fleet and our maritime workforce.
Cato and The Wall Street Journal would have us believe that outsourcing would save tons of money with little downside.
They're wrong on both points:
- Money would not be saved.
- And . . . There are tremendous downsides.
It would cost our Navy billions of dollars to replicate the ships and maritime workforce we would lose by repealing the Jones Act.
China already has 1.7 million seafarers compared to our 12,000 mariners, and nearly four times the shipbuilding workforce.
Without the Jones Act, these advantages would increase exponentially.
We need mariners and ships to be ready in the event of conflict with China — the very country to whom the outsourcers would hand over our domestic shipping capability.
Does anyone really want Chinese shipping companies — controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — shipping our steel, energy, and technology inside our borders?
Fortunately, outside of the Washington D.C. swamp. the pro-outsourcing propaganda campaign has been completely ineffective.
Despite the best efforts of The Wall Street Journal — which at times refuses to publish voices like mine dissenting from their simplistic anti-Jones Act arguments — Americans support the Jones Act
Strong majorities in both parties in Congress also support the Jones Act as more and more people have woken up to the expansion of China’s navy and the need to re-shore our most vital industries.
With each passing day that China grows its fleet and its influence around the globe, the Jones Act is becoming even more necessary. Just weeks ago, China made a not-so-veiled threat of a looming war. We need more mariners, not fewer.
The Cato-Wall Street Journal view is a radical view that has never been mainstream in our history. America has always protected domestic shipping for national security reasons.
Our Founding Fathers put taxes and duties on foreign shipping from the very beginning.
Following the War of 1812, they strengthened those protections.
A century later, after World War I, Congress passed the Jones Act; it has been the bipartisan consensus ever since. It was under the Jones Act that America became the world’s leading naval power.
Even the father of free trade, Adam Smith, supported similar laws in his native Great Britain for national security purposes.
The pro-outsourcing crowd makes a lot of noise and wants us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Their arguments remain as weak as ever.
As the Trump White House put it recently, some people are "always wrong."
George Landrith has served as president of Frontiers of Freedom, since 1998. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He is also the author of "Let Freedom Ring . . . Again." To learn more about Frontiers of Freedom, visit www.ff.org. Read George Landrith's Reports — More Here.