[Hootowl99]

Many are probably not acquainted with gCaptain. It's a high end publication focusing on all thing merchant marine related. Konrad, the author of this article, is very well known, the publisher of gCaptain and an unlimited tonnage master. His opinions are extremely influential. He fights like hell for the merchant marine industry. All aspects of it.

Several posters had disparaging comments about the Jones Act. I do not share this. Without the Jones Act, the US merchant marine would be extinct. This is a radical national security issue. We need it.

IMO, letting the US merchant marine to wither is one more way the Democrats are sabotaging the US. This is what the OP article is raising the alarm about. It’s

[Timber Rattler]

Without the Jones Act, the US merchant marine would be extinct. This is a radical national security issue. We need it.

Agreed 100%!

Most people don't realize that Senator Wesley Jones and Admiral William Benson (Chief of Naval Operations during World War 1 and President of the U.S. Shipping Board) collaborated on writing the Jones Act and pushing it through Congress as a NATIONAL DEFENSE MEASURE!

It's purpose was threefold: 1) Keep the growing imperial Japanese merchant marine from taking over the Washington-Alaska trade routes; 2) Keep foreign-flagged shipping out of domestic U.S. waterways (think Russian trawlers in the Mississippi River!); and 3) maintain the U.S. Merchant Marine as a viable auxiliary to the U.S. Navy in the event of war.

No Jones Act, and no U.S. Merchant Marine!