Jones Act didn't kill American Shipbuilding, cost of American worker did.
However, whole reason for Jones Act is attempt to protect the American Merchant Marine. If you can't move things via water in wartime, you don't have an empire.
> If you can't move things via water in wartime, you don't have an empire.
Exactly, the feeble American shipbuilding industry has been an existential risk waiting to explode for a generation. But corruption and profits speak louder than national security here.
> Jones Act didn't kill American Shipbuilding, cost of American worker did
This has been studied to death. European shipyards have similar labor costs to a lot of America. They still build cheaper ships faster than we do. Same for Korea.
> If you can't move things via water in wartime, you don't have an empire
And yet here we are, entirely dependent on foreign shipyards for basically any meaningful production.
The Jones Act killed American shipping. It makes our shipyards uncompetitive. And it makes our waterways too expensive to ply because the only things one can legally float on them are uncompetitive, expensive ships.
>This has been studied to death. European shipyards have similar labor costs to a lot of America. They still build cheaper ships faster than we do. Same for Korea.
Europeans provide direct subsidy compared to American subsidy of just requiring certain ships to be built in America. Also, looking at recent trends, Europe has fallen out of favor as well with rise of Japan/Korea/China (https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/industrial-policy-lessons-shi...)
Also worth noting that Japan/Korea/China HEAVILY subsidize their ship building as well.
>And yet here we are, entirely dependent on foreign shipyards for basically any meaningful production.
Sure, because despite the subsidizes, economics was always going to make US ships unattractive.
>The Jones Act killed American shipping.
There is zero evidence that this did it because all evidence says if you repealed it, all shippers would just buy Chinese ships, flag them under flag of convenience and staff them all with overseas worker where they make 2000USD/yr.
> There is zero evidence that this did it because all evidence says if you repealed it, all shippers would just buy Chinese ships, flag them under flag of convenience and staff them all with overseas worker where they make 2000USD/yr.
You are both right, one in the long term, the other in the short term. The Jones act protected US shipbuilders from competition over a long term. Repealing it would expose them to extreme competition in the short term, when they suddenly need to compete with other shipyards on the open market.
There's probably no clean solution here. Repealing now would shake up the us market, some shipyards might close, others might scramble to catch up.
The thing is, if you wait 'till next year, it'll be worse. And the year after that even worse.
Meanwhile, compare eg the Netherlands with very high wages, punching far above its weight with Heerema, Mammoet, Damen, IHC, Boskalis, Van Oord, Allseas, Smit, and more. It's (mostly) illegal to operate their equipment in the US. Which makes all sorts of things more expensive than it should be. And american companies don't need to compete, don't need to even consider building heavy engineering hardware. The current situation is lose-lose.
it didn't kill ship building, but it did shipping by ship within the US.
the US still ends up without a merchant marine, at least compared to if it di have ships moving between US ports and not just arriving at/leaving from US ports
Jones Act didn't kill American Shipbuilding, cost of American worker did.
However, whole reason for Jones Act is attempt to protect the American Merchant Marine. If you can't move things via water in wartime, you don't have an empire.