There are three main pillars to it. Vessels moving goods between US ports need to be: 1. US flagged and owned 2. US crewed 3. US built. I genuinely agree with

There are three main pillars to it. Vessels moving goods between US ports need to be: 1. US flagged and owned 2. US crewed 3. US built. I genuinely agree with the first two points. Most container ships sail under flags of convenience (so that they can minimize regulations in terms of conduct/the environment/etc) and with crews from developing nations that they abuse and treat as indentured servants. Do you want to allow US domestic shipping to be done by entities over which the US has negligible regulatory control? I don’t! The third is intended (along with the other 2) to ensure that the US maintains strategically important maritime capabilities, to retain the ability to build and crew a merchant marine. Personally I think this is a less compelling case than the regulation case, but I don’t think it’s totally without merit. I think the idea that this is responsible for the high cost of goods in Hawaii and Puerto Rico is basically not credible, because it doesn’t prevent those ports being included in import sailings. You could make a case that it makes those places less competitive as manufacturers of goods for export to the rest of the US, but if you think that the jones act is the major reason Hawaii isn’t a manufacturing hub… idk what to tell you. I think the other reality is that even if you like (1) and (2) but not (3) it’s hard to break it apart because the jones act unites concerns over the ability to regulate with concerns over strategic readiness, which creates a coalition to maintain it that would potentially break otherwise.