To Help Puerto Rico, Repeal the Jones Act
Beyond the issues identified by Mary Anastasia O’Grady (“Puerto Rico Is a Political Football,” Americas, Nov. 4), another cause of Puerto Rico’s economic ails is the protectionist Jones Act. By restricting domestic water transport to those vessels registered and built in the U.S., the law produces some of the world’s costliest shipping. That’s no small matter for an island that counts the U.S. mainland as its largest trading partner.
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A study by two Purdue University economists this year pegged the Jones Act’s annual welfare burden to Puerto Rico at $1.4 billion. Similarly, a 2020 RAND report identified the Jones Act as a leading impediment to the island’s economic growth.
The Jones Act’s contribution to Puerto Rico’s energy woes is particularly noteworthy. Accessing bulk liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. mainland, for example, is impossible due to a lack of Jones Act-compliant gas tankers to transport it. This de facto embargo has led Puerto Rico to inefficiently import from as far afield as Nigeria and Oman to meet its needs.
Puerto Rico must get its economic house in order. But Washington can also help by either repealing the Jones Act or exempting the island from this wretched law.
