In the first six months of President Trump’s term in office, he has fulfilled his promise to cancel foreign agreements that hurt American businesses. Now he needs to push Congress to revamp maritime laws that provide unfair advantages to international shipping companies. One such legislation is the Shipping Act, a century-old law that provides antitrust immunity to ocean carriers who work together to negotiate service terms.
While the Shipping Act was initially designed to protect American ocean carriers, today there are no U.S. companies within the three big shipping alliances. In order to rectify this imbalance, lawmakers need to give the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) more power under the Shipping Act so they can challenge anti-competitive practices and monitor the broader effects of collusion by foreign alliances.
Read more about this antiquated law and several solutions to fix it in the Washington Examiner article I authored here.
