The White House is considering temporarily waiving a century-old shipping law to allow more ships to deliver at U.S. ports as global shipping disruptions continue due to the Iran invasion.
Shipping lanes and timelines have been snarled for nearly two weeks after the United States and Israel carried out strikes on Iran, leading to delays around the Strait of Hormuz and surging oil prices. Increased costs and continued disruptions have sent American gas prices surging, a concerning development for President Donald Trump’s administration, which had touted lowering pump prices in the last year.
The White House is now considering waiving the Jones Act, a 1920 law that requires goods transported between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-owned ships.
“In the interest of national defense, the White House is considering waiving the Jones Act for a limited period of time to ensure vital energy products and agricultural necessities are flowing freely to U.S. ports,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
In a separate move designed to stabilize oil prices, the International Energy Agency on Wednesday announced that it would carry out its largest-ever release of oil reserves — 400 million barrels.
The move to suspend the Jones Act underscores how few tools the administration has to curb the runaway energy prices sparked by the war in Iran. A waiver would allow foreign-flagged ships to deliver oil and gas between U.S. ports. Critics have long argued that the prohibition on such deliveries unnecessarily drives up the cost of energy by limiting oil shipments to the comparatively small U.S.-flagged commercial fleet.
Studies have shown that the Jones Act does have a cost to consumers. But the cost is considered largely on the margins when it comes to energy prices at a moment like the United States is now in.
“Think whatever you want about the Jones Act — and I know some of you do — the impact on retail gas prices will be less than 2 cents a gallon,” Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, a research group, said in a post on X. “Negligible.”
The market research firm Jefferies concluded much the same in a research note Wednesday, as it weighed some of the “emergency actions” the administration might pursue as it tries to keep prices at the pump from surging. It found that a Jones Act waiver is just one of many such measures that “could create near-term noise” but are limited in “their ability to alter underlying market fundamentals.”
“Historically, emergency actions such as export restrictions, Jones Act waivers, or SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] releases have been narrowly targeted, temporary, and politically difficult to sustain,” the note said.
The Trump administration has not yet finalized issuing the waiver.
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