@daklub@AMPmaritime@mercoglianos Right, but it’s undoubtedly cheaper to run foreign crewed/owned towboats if it did actually get repealed, and that’s the concern. It’s not a question of price vs rail, but price vs foreign operators who would be able to undercut American mariners
@DerekBarge@OMSAmaritime Because the Reagan admin erased the differential subsidies to American shipyards. What’s the one thing every serious shipbuilding nation has in common? Direct subsidies to their yards
@cpgrabow@JimBran9090@TransportDems By your own measure only a handful of EAF mills can even take delivery from a ship, the majority would need to be transloaded if it even makes sense to put it on a ship in the first place. You & I have very different views on the value of American labor
@JimBran9090@TransportDems Not an AI. Try researching the history of the US merchant marine and the economics of shipbuilding instead of just going “no, government bad”
@JimBran9090@TransportDems Seriously, every leading shipbuilding nation directly subsidizes or has state ownership of their yards. America is playing on hard mode and it’s self imposed.
@JimBran9090@TransportDems What’s the one thing that every serious shipbuilding nation does that we cut during the Reagan admin. Differential subsidies. We can’t expect to compete if our yards aren’t even playing the same game. They’re being set up to fail.
@ningbeck@TransportDems I’m sick of people who have never pulled cable, never rinsed a hold, and never got an 0230 wake-up call to make a dock in the rain telling the world how American mariners are rent seeking & don’t deserve jobs.
@NotALegume@TransportDems Am I crazy to think we should be able to build things and transport our own cargo in this country? Not everything needs to be outsourced to 3rd world countries, good god.
@JimBran9090@TransportDems America was once a maritime superpower under the Jones Act, and it can compete again in the modern era with common sense policy changes. It’s crazy to me to cheer on an American reindustrialization and in the same breath want to axe a whole sector of transportation jobs
@MikeHowton@AMPmaritime That’s the US flagged oceangoing fleet that’s shrunk due to 40+ years of zero policy support from Washington after the Reagan admin cut shipbuilding subsidies. You’re overlooking the 5,500 towboats & tugboats moving 31,000 barges around this country, that’s JA trade
@MikeHowton@AMPmaritime It’s not apples and oranges at all, this is a direct comparison between two modes of cabotage protected transport. Keep in mind the Jones Act only applies to domestic routes, not intl imports/exports which those islands participate in every day
@MikeHowton@AMPmaritime Allow Aero Mexico & Air China to compete in US domestic air transport then. Same difference. Let’s see a RyanAir ORD to MSY put American crews out of jobs, just like everyone who’s never tied a bowline wants to put American mariners out of work
@daklub@AMPmaritime@mercoglianos The jones act mandates that those are American flagged towboats with American crews. Without the Jones Act, those could be Panamanian or Liberian flagged towboats with foreign crews making dollars per day.
@thawarlock@AMPmaritime Everyday Americans form those unions. This isn’t a union issue or a Jones Act issue, this is a direct result of cuts to the differential subsidies from the Reagan administration. Every serious shipbuilding nation directly subsidizes their yards, and the US does not.