Op-Ed: The Jones Act Waiver, A Gift to China and NATO’s Iran Onlookers Maritime Activity Reports, Inc. Garrett Rice May 1, 2026 © Adobe Stock/MQ-Illustrations When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, the Administration had a real problem on its hands. I understand why a White House would want to move fast, but moving fast and moving smart are not the same thing. This week the Administration extended the current Jones Act waiver for another 90 days. Washington needs to take an honest look at what this waiver has actually produced. The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), which oversees the nation’s merchant fleet, has data that tells the story. Of the fifteen voyages completed under the current waiver, a clear majority have gone to maritime companies based in Greece, Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Those are the same NATO allies that declined to support U.S. operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the very crisis the waiver was issued to address. They would not help move American warfighters. But they have been plenty eager to move idle foreign fleets into American domestic trades, displacing American vessels and American mariners. Foreign operators who pay no federal or state taxes and do not comply with U.S. immigration laws now enjoy a built-in cost advantage in American waters. The waiver was marketed as a defense measure. In practice it has rewarded the allies who sat out the fight.  Look closer and the picture gets worse. Four of those fifteen vessels were built in Chinese shipyards. Ten of the owner operators behind them have direct Chinese connections. The same policy that bypassed American yards to address a defense concern has put Chinese-built tonnage and Chinese-linked operators into the very trades the Jones Act was written to protect. China has made its shipbuilding ambitions explicit. They control a dominant share of global commercial shipbuilding, and they are not shy about the connection between commercial capacity and naval readiness