For many Americans, the experience of driving on a coastal highway like Interstate 5 in California can be a nightmare of dodging massive trucks hauling cargo between US cities. In Europe, not so much.
That’s because for decades, European nations have turned to the sea rather than the road to transport goods across the continent. In fact, over 40% of Europe’s domestic freight is shipped along so-called motorways of the sea. In the US, a measly 2% of domestic freight distributed among the lower forty-eight states travels by water, even though half the population lives near the coast.
One big reason why is an obscure law, enacted right after World War 1, called the Jones Act, which preserves a monopoly for US-built, owned and operated ships to transport goods between US ports. The monopoly was designed to support the American merchant marine. It was thought that allowing foreign vessels to move goods between US ports would hurt American shipbuilding and lead to a decline in ship ownership, putting the country at risk during wartime. It was also designed to ensure that the US had ample ships to conduct international trade.
The problem is the legal maneuvering didn’t much protect the US shipbuilding industry. The costs are so prohibitively high, the US builds very few ships, having long ago ceded the industry to Korea, China and Japan. In 2011, there were just five public shipyards in the US and 20 private ones. According to a recent study, there are some 171 privately-owned US flagged ships today. Just 93 of them are Jones Act-eligible...
Read more at:
https://qz.com/1032288/how-a-100-year-old-american-law-helps-make-your-commute-miserable/
