This piece was initially published in the National Interest.

The Trump administration recently extended its Jones Act waiver for another 90 days, allowing goods shipped between US ports to travel on foreign vessels. The Jones Act requires domestic cargo to move on ships that are built, owned, and crewed by Americans.

>>>READ: Time to Waive the Jones Act Goodbye Forever

The new waiver applies only to specific commodities, including gasoline, diesel, crude oil, petrochemicals, natural gas, and fertilizer, and government agencies must first confirm that no Jones Act-compliant vessel is available before turning to a foreign-flagged one. Even with these restrictions, the waiver has delivered measurable benefits to American consumers and businesses, underscoring why this outdated law should be repealed altogether.

Jones Act Waiver Increases US Shipping Capacity

The United States is the world’s largest oil and gas producer, but energy abundance means little if that energy cannot reach the people who need it. In the waiver’s first 50 days, foreign-flagged tankers moved 1.59 million barrels of diesel products from the Gulf Coast to the West Coast—roughly four times the volume shipped by water on that route during all of 2025. In the waiver’s first 76 days, more gasoline and jet fuel moved from the Gulf Coast to the West Coast than in the previous 11 years combined. According to the Cato Institute’s Jones Act Waiver Tracker, as of July 10, 162 voyages had moved 40 million barrels of energy products, roughly half of it gasoline and crude oil.

This surge is not evidence of foreign ships taking work from idle American vessels. A separate tracker of the 56 Jones Act-compliant tankers found the entire domestic fleet fully employed. The waiver simply added capacity where none existed, getting more fuel to market rather than displacing American shippers.

The Jones Act Waiver Connects American Producers and Consumers

The waiver has also linked American producers directly with American customers, especially in non-contiguous states and territories. The United States is the world’s largest propane producer, yet the Jones Act fleet includes zero oceangoing liquid propane gas (LPG) tankers. Without a waiver, Puerto Rico has no economical way to buy bulk propane from the mainland using the global LPG fleet. Once the restriction was relaxed, US propane began flowing to the island in bulk—and by July, Puerto Rico had purchased more American propane in four months than in the previous 22 years combined.

The waiver also allowed crude oil from Texas to reach East Coast refiners. New England, which has no refineries of its own and limited pipeline access, received nearly one million barrels of mostly gasoline and diesel in the waiver’s first 115 days.

Just as important, the waiver opened access to specialized vessels that simply do not exist in the Jones Act fleet. The same LPG tankers, for example, also carried anhydrous ammonia, a key fertilizer input, helping deliver cost-competitive supplies to American farmers.

Jones Act Reform Would Strengthen US Supply Chain Resiliency

Jones Act waivers are routinely issued whenever ordinary transportation networks fail, demonstrating that the law itself is an obstacle to quicker, more efficient recoveries. After the 2021 Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, the federal government approved two targeted waivers to ease East Coast fuel shortages. After Hurricane Fiona in 2022, waivers helped keep diesel flowing to backup generators across Puerto Rico. Waivers have also supported Strategic Petroleum Reserve drawdowns, disaster response, and oil-spill cleanup, and the Defense Department has leased or used foreign vessels to carry out its own missions.

>>>READ: Harnessing Rail for Resilient Supply Chains

These episodes expose a basic contradiction at the heart of the law: whenever energy supplies tighten, infrastructure fails, or disaster strikes, both Democratic and Republican administrations recognize that restricting shippers to a small pool of qualifying vessels only makes the crisis worse.

And the benefits of flexibility do not disappear once the emergency ends. Supply chains do not become more efficient just because Washington declares the crisis over. Repealing the Jones Act would give shippers permanent flexibility, diversifying and strengthening American supply chains for good.

The Jones Act draws criticism from across the political spectrum, from Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Mike Lee (R-UT) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has long highlighted the law’s disproportionate toll on Puerto Ricans. That rare bipartisan agreement is exactly the momentum needed to finally drive a stake through the heart of the Jones Act.