Trump Has Until Sunday to Stop a 1920 Shipping Law From Hitting Your Heating Bill

Under Trump's first two waivers, foreign ships made 311 domestic cargo runs that a 1920 law would have banned.

On Sunday, that law snaps back unless Trump extends the waiver.

And the shipping lobby that wants it back is counting on you not noticing what it costs.

A Century-Old Law That Shuts Out Cheaper Ships

The Jones Act is simple – if a load moves from one American port to another, the ship carrying it has to be built here, fly our flag, and carry an American crew.

That leaves a small, protected fleet with a lock on hauling fuel, fertilizer, and everything else up and down our own coasts.

On March 18, Trump suspended it for 60 days after the war with Iran threw roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply into chaos.

The waiver reached 659 kinds of cargo, from jet fuel and propane to the ammonia and urea farmers spread as fertilizer.

It was renewed in May and again in August, and by Sunday, November 15, the run will hit 243 days – the longest unbroken Jones Act waiver ever.

The Waiver Moved Real Fuel

"Data shows the waiver has driven a significant increase in domestic deliveries of essential products," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in August.

Moving Gulf Coast fuel to the West Coast on foreign tankers cut roughly 6.6 cents off a gallon, by the American Action Forum's math.

Back East, the savings came to somewhere between 1.5 and 2 cents a gallon.

Big refiners filed most of the requests for foreign ships, with Valero alone filing 29, according to Bloomberg Government.

The Shipping Lobby Pushed Back

Domestic shipbuilders, maritime unions, and their friends in Congress spent the summer leaning on the White House to rein the waiver in.

In August, they got part of what they wanted.

The blanket exemption ended, every foreign ship now needs approval trip by trip, and the Department of War has to ask the Maritime Administration whether an American vessel can do the job first.

Once the new rules kicked in on August 17, approved foreign trips fell to 19.

Now the lobby wants the whole waiver gone.

The American Maritime Partnership claims its members have stalled more than $2.6 billion in new ship construction, plus another $700 million in dredging vessel orders.

"Allowing the Jones Act waiver to expire as scheduled will restore certainty, protect American jobs," the group's president, Jennifer Carpenter, wrote in a November 3 letter.

The group also claims more than 28% of waiver exemptions involved ships or companies tied to China – but its China numbers come from the group's own analysis, which even a pro-Jones Act coalition flagged as unaudited.

Taxpayer Groups Want It Wider Before Winter

On the other side stand the people who pay the bills.

On October 22, the National Taxpayers Union and 18 allied groups – among them Americans for Tax Reform and the American Energy Alliance – urged Trump to expand the waiver.

"This requirement is significantly weakening your efforts to bolster domestic shipping," the groups wrote, calling a broader extension "particularly imperative" before winter.

Regular gas averaged $4.01 a gallon Monday, down 36 cents in a month, and nobody wants that progress reversed by a shipping bottleneck in January.

The Fix Is Sitting in Plain Sight

Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Maria – every time a real emergency hits, Washington suspends this law to get things moving, which says plenty about what it does the rest of the time.

A foreign freighter leaving Los Angeles for Asia sails right past Hawaii, yet it can't carry a single container from LA to Honolulu.

It can drop off overseas cargo in Honolulu on the way in, but it can't take on one box there bound for California.

Every load moving between the mainland and the islands has to ride a Jones Act ship instead.

Island families pay for that – the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii has put the cost at about $1,800 per family every year.

The common-sense reform is to let a ship already on an international voyage pick up and drop off American cargo along its route.

Hawaii would stop paying extra for cargo that sailed right past it.

Sunday Decides Whether Trump's Win Sticks

Trump wants American shipyards building again, and he signed an executive order in April 2025 to make it happen.

Nobody builds a shipyard faster by forcing Americans to overpay for every gallon moved between two American ports.

As of Monday night, the White House, the Department of War, and Homeland Security hadn't said whether the waiver will be extended.

The call belongs to Trump, and he has until Sunday to make it.

The shipping lobby already knows what it wants – the families paying for heating oil this winter should get a say too.

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Sources:

• Alton Wallace, "Trump's Jones Act waiver, regarding shipping, expires Sunday unless extended," The Center Square via Just the News, November 9, 2026.
• Eric Haun, "Trump extends Jones Act waiver, ends blanket exemptions," WorkBoat, August 10, 2026.
• Mihir Torsekar, "The Jones Act: An America First Law, Waived for China's Benefit," Coalition for a Prosperous America, July 31, 2026.
• The White House, "Restoring America's Maritime Dominance," Executive Order, April 9, 2025.
• Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, "How Jones Act reform can work for everyone," Hawaii Free Press, December 17, 2022.