AMP Launches Anti-Jones Act Waiver Campaign

The American Maritime Partnership (AMP), the voice of the domestic maritime industry, has announced a new national campaign calling on President Donald J. Trump to end the ongoing and unprecedented 150-day Jones Act waiver and put American workers, American businesses and American maritime strength first.
The Jones Act is a fundamental national security law that requires vessels moving cargo from point to point in the United States to be built, owned and crewed by Americans. The current waiver of that law by the Trump administration is already creating extensive harm to American workers and American investment while foreign countries and workers profit.
The U.S. has been a maritime nation since its founding, and in the months leading up to – and following – America’s 250th birthday, the campaign will air in the nation’s most prominent maritime states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, among others. The campaign will feature television, connected TV, radio and digital advertising, including voices drawn from the 650,000 men and women of the American maritime workforce.

Bad Advice
“Clearly, President Trump has been led to believe that waiving the Jones Act is an effective way to lower gas prices, when we all see that prices have not gone down with the waiver,” said Jennifer Carpenter, president of the American Maritime Partnership.
“What the waiver does is put America last by allowing foreign operators and mariners to take American business and jobs. While it may be a convenient talking point for Kevin Hassett and others pushing this failed attempt to lower prices, it directly undermines the very policies that President Trump campaigned on and has championed – buy American, hire American and strengthen our national might. The president should trust his instincts, follow his outlined policies and put America and our national security first.”
The campaign’s first ad, titled “End the Waiver,” features a captain of a Jones Act vessel reminding the audience that American maritime is the quintessential “America First” industry. The ad ends with a call for the president to end the waiver and “put Americans back to work.”

IMX Comments
Matt Woodruff focused on the anti-waiver campaign during his remarks at the recently concluded Inland Marine Expo in Nashville, Tenn. Woodruff, vice president of public and governmental affairs at Kirby Corporation and chairman of the board at The American Waterways Operators (AWO), also called out Hassett by name. Hassett, who directs the National Economic Council, is the most prominent of several of Trump’s White House advisers who have made no secret of their opposition to the Jones Act.
Woodruff said he doesn’t believe that Trump himself opposes the Jones Act, only that he has listened to the “wrong advisers.” Woodruff said one goal of the anti-waiver campaign is to convince the President that the waiver is incompatible with his initiatives to revive American shipbuilding and the domestic merchant marine. According to the AMP, the uncertainty of the waiver’s potential extension has already caused at least one investment platform to halt a planned $1 billion capital raise for the maritime industry, putting at risk more than $2.6 billion in active U.S. shipyard contracts and billions more in planned expansion.

No Effect On Pump Prices
One stated goal of the waivers was to reduce gas prices at the pump, but recent independent analysis puts the waiver’s price impact at just $0.000157 per gallon. Total fuel moved under the waiver over the first 60 days amounts to roughly 11 hours of national consumption. Those immaterial benefits are a result of foreign carriers being able to operate free from compliance with U.S. immigration, minimum wage and taxation laws, among other regulations, AMP said.
Meanwhile, completed waiver voyages have benefited foreign operators, many with ties to China. Broker data show that American vessels were available for about 90% of those routes.
In addition to television, CTV and digital advertising, the campaign will give voice to local mariners and operators by connecting them to media to discuss the impact of the waiver on jobs, investment and national security.
The campaign will run until the waiver ends. To speak out against the ongoing waiver of the Jones Act, please click here.
The American Maritime Partnership (AMP) is the voice of the U.S. domestic maritime industry. More than 45,000 American vessels built in American shipyards, crewed by American mariners and owned by American companies operate in our waters 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This commerce sustains nearly 650,000 American jobs, $41.6 billion in labor compensation and more than $154.8 billion in annual economic output. Learn more by visiting www.americanmaritimepartnership.com.

Featured photo caption: Matt Woodruff of Kirby Corporation and chairman of The American Waterways Operators at the Inland Marine Expo in Nashville, Tenn.