This is a joke, right? It is not immigration-driven population growth causing traffic jams in LA , it is the lack of foreign steamers plying our waters. ROTL. The dead giveaway, of course, is the trade advice from that giant of economic thought, Walt Whitman.

Ah, the US merchant marine was in decline from about the Civil War on. Also, I'm not clear on the link between coastal shipping from one US port to another and trans Atlantic or trans Pacific trade. Finally, since Liberia and Panama and the Bahamas bascially exist to provide 'flags of convience' how would repealing a couple of laws end those countries 'comparative advantage?'

msj:

Indeed, I'm not aware of similar Canadian regulations for international shipping, and they have had a decline as well. Former PM Paul Martin had a political issue with his family-owned ships being flagged Liberian or something.

thomas e reillyjr 8877 pickwick dr. indy in 46260
all workers at iu bloomington will be at @2.oo
a hours and no health insurance at all all poor
workers in the state of indiana will do the same
cover up in pay why their no poor people or
workers or campus people who are poor here at
all in bloomiongton indiana 47401 i do not see
then or talk too them at all

thomas e reillyjr 8877 pickwick dr. indy in 46260
all workers at iu bloomington will be at @2.oo
a hours and no health insurance at all all poor
workers in the state of indiana will do the same
cover up in pay why their no poor people or
workers or campus people who are poor here at
all in bloomiongton indiana 47401 i do not see
then or talk too them at all

thomas e reillyjr 8877 pickwick dr. indy in 46260
all workers at iu bloomington will be at @2.oo
a hours and no health insurance at all all poor
workers in the state of indiana will do the same
cover up in pay why their no poor people or
workers or campus people who are poor here at
all in bloomiongton indiana 47401 i do not see
then or talk too them at all

Nice Whitman quote, but your use is rather anachronistic.

19th Century American protectionism was a bedrock component of Republicanism and was the instrument of industrialists (labor was only struggling to establish real bargaining power in those days) in fattening their profit margins and driving growth. It was an "aggressive" top-down protectionist impulse.

The decidely un-Republican protectionism in the air today is much more a defensive bottom-up reaction to the rapid shift of labor intensive industry (whether manufacturing or services) to "low cost countries" which may or may not have similar labor or environmental constraints.

Would poorly designed protectionist initiatives undertaken in the present prove self-defeating? Quite likely. But it is unfair to conflate anxiety over steady erosion in American competitiveness with rent-seeking 19th century policies orchestrated from the top.

While I don't necessarily disagree with their policy position, I've the impression that their history is skewed to their benefit--to overdramatize, American shipping was swept from the seas by the Civil War and never really recovered. For example, in 1859, 7,806 ships entered US ports, 5,266 were US flag. In 1869, 8,750 ships entered, 3,403 were US flag. By 1900, well before the Merchant Marine Acts were passed only 6,136 of the 28,163 total were US flagged.

As for more recent history, in 1948 the world's merchant marine was US built because the U-boats had sunk the British etc. ships and Henry Kaiser built his ships very very fast.

I suspect the current rules are the result of the coalition of US shipbuilders, US politicians (like Senator Lott) and US unions. It's the same sort of setup that ensures that we ship US grain to starving countries rather than buying grain regionally.

Dan -- I wouldn't want to defend the jones act, but I rather doubt the decline of new york as a port for global trade is a product of the jones act per se; geography may have more to do with this than anything else. The US population is dispersed and spread along two coasts that are a long ways apart as the ship sails but tied together by an effective internal transportation system (railways. etc). You ship goods from one end of eurasia (say korea) to the other (france and uk) by sea, but you don't necessarily ship goods by sea from SF to NYC, and that isn't simply a product of the jones act/ restrictions on maritime transit. geography/ the canal/ good internal transit options play a role. The US also is a destination point geographically for the transatlantic and transpacific trade and not obvious a good hub for any global shipping --

finally, the US just doesn't make all that much stuff these days -- the hub of manufacturing and shipping is in east asia. and the US will never by the logical hub for managing intra-asian sea based shipping of electronics components ..

"...Before railroads and highways were developed, a network of water transportation routes connected America’s port cities and towns...."

Internal waterways such as the Ohio and the Mississippi handle a great deal of freight but are limited by simple geography, only a tiny number of businesses are adjacent to water. Trucks and trains will continue to carry the rest.

I suppose we could reopen the barge canals and rehitch the mule trains - gee haw!

As far as ocean-bound freight, as long as I can remember freighters have been registered in places such as Liberia and Panama - something to do with maritime liability? Maybe someone here knows - I'm not certain.

The port of New York, and Bayonne and all that, shipped the production of what is now the Rust Belt, so it's not too surprisong that traffic is off.

Mitchell is right about immigrants clogging the freeways in Southern California - immigrants from the Midwest. But it seems to me that the truck traffic clogging the roads is going inland rather than coastwise, so maybe we should be talking about problems with our rail system instead.

There is a small amount of US shipping to and from China and Japan to the Puget Sound ports, but I don't see how to increase this just by allowing the lines to buy foreign vessels - they would need foreign crews to compete on price, and with foreign vessels and foreign crews, what would be American about those shipping lines?

""In 1948, more than a third of the world’s merchant fleet flew the stars and stripes; today that figure is down to 2 percent. Half a century ago, America built more ships than any other nation""

The "Realist" position which wishes to return us to those glory days is a two-step process:

1. End recognition of "Flags of Convenience" like Liberia and Panama, and

2. Instigate a world war and destroy all competitors ships and ports.