US to ease shipping rule in bid to tame spiralling fuel prices

Published Fri, Mar 13, 2026 · 06:11 AM

[WASHINGTON] The Trump administration plans to waive a century-old maritime law that requires American ships to be used to transport goods between US ports as it seeks to blunt surging oil and petrol prices, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The 30-day exemption, which is still being developed, is set to apply broadly to vessels moving oil, petrol, diesel, liquefied natural gas and fertiliser among US ports, the sources said. That would enable generally cheaper foreign tankers to move those goods, including Gulf Coast oil to refineries on the US East Coast and fuel from the region to more populous areas.

“In the interest of national defence, the White House is considering waiving the Jones Act for a limited period of time to ensure vital energy products and agricultural necessities are flowing freely to US ports,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “This action has not been finalised.”

The plan comes as US President Donald Trump considers multiple options to stem the dramatic rise in crude and petrol amid the war in Iran. On Wednesday (Mar 11), the administration announced it would release 172 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Overall, countries are coordinating to release 400 million barrels from their stockpiles.

US petrol futures pared gains after the news. Waiving the Jones Act could save East Coast motorists roughly 10 US cents a gallon, according to a 2022 JP Morgan Chase estimate.

“It absolutely facilitates the free flow of petrol, which otherwise would have to come from Europe or other destinations to reach the Northeast,” said David Goldwyn, an energy envoy under former president Barack Obama and president of consulting firm Goldwyn Global Strategies. “There are very few US tankers that are available, so the Northeast continues to import whatever petrol they can’t get from the pipeline.”

The vast majority of US refineries are on the Gulf Coast, and there’s only one major pipeline connecting them to the Northeast, the US’s most densely populated region.

While waiving the Jones Act could help lower prices somewhat, the impacts are apt to be limited, said Colin Grabow, associate director at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, which advocates for repealing the law.

“The Jones Act is probably responsible for a few cents per gallon – pennies per gallon, not dimes per gallon,” Grabow said. “It could be helpful, but the effects could get swamped by broader movements in the market.”

A shipping exemption would do little to address the real source of high prices right now – the backlog of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, said Josh Linville, vice-president for fertilisers at brokerage StoneX Group. And the move would come too late to make a meaningful dent in fertiliser pricing for US farmers ahead of the spring planting season, he added.

While the government has temporarily lifted US shipping requirements to combat fuel shortages after major storms, doing it can be politically fraught. The Jones Act is championed by some of the nation’s biggest shipbuilders and vessel operators, as well as their allies on Capitol Hill.

On Thursday, a White House official said the Trump administration can assure that the move will not impact American shipbuilding.

The US last waived the Jones Act in October 2022 for a tanker heading to Puerto Rico to deliver supplies after Hurricane Fiona.

The Biden administration also temporarily issued an exemption for refiner Valero Energy following a cyberattack on a major East Coast fuel pipeline in 2021. BLOOMBERG