Trump’s Jones Act waiver sets new legal precedent
by Michael N. Hansen, President, Hawaii Shippers Council, April 15, 2026
The President Donald J. Trump Administration issued a Jones Act waiver in March 2026 to increase ocean shipping capacity in the U.S. domestic trades and thereby ease the adverse economic impacts on energy and related resources resulting from the U.S. military engagement in Iran known as “Operation Epic Fury."
That military operation began on February 28, 2026, primarily involves Israel and the U.S. versus Iran, is being conducted almost entirely in the Middle East and officially projected to continue at least through April 2026. The 60-day navigation waiver became effective on March 17, 2026, and expires on May 17, 2026.
Trump’s navigation waiver is the first to be issued since the enabling federal statute was extensively amended in 2021 to make the waiver process more restrictive and better protect the domestic Jones Act maritime industry from foreign shipping.
Trump’s navigation waiver exceeds the statutory and past practice limitations in several key dimensions in what can only be seen as a direct challenge to the domestic Jones Act maritime industry. A key question is: whether or not these obvious points of contention will lead to a legal challenge by the industry to both restrict the scope of the waiver and defend the integrity of existing amended statute.
Mitigating against a legal challenge is the Trump Administration’s ongoing support for the industry especially the U.S. domestic shipbuilding sector as embodied by its formal policy known as America’s Maritime Action Plan (MAP) issued in February 2026.
But, if the domestic maritime industry doesn’t challenge the instant navigation waiver, the very broad and liberal Trump Administration interpretation of the amended statute would become an operating precedent.
The authorizing statute for navigation waivers is 46 USC § 501, “Waiver of navigation and vessel-inspection laws.” It was enacted in 1950 to reinstate the previous statutory authority granted to the War Department to employ vessels not eligible for the coastwise trade (i.e., “foreign vessels”) in domestic commerce for national security purposes during World War II (WWII).
The 1950 statute was substantially amended on December 23, 2021, as proposed by the domestic Jones Act maritime lobby, in response to the Jones Act waivers controversially issued by the first Trump Administration (2017 – 2021) including for the domestic Puerto Rico trade during 2017 for Hurricane Maria relief.
The 2021 amendments purposefully make the statutory requirements for a navigation waiver far more restrictive and procedurally complex. In particular, by requiring all waivers to be requested by and issued to the Secretary of Defense (War) and limited to only national defense purposes, which returned the justification of waivers to their WWII precursor. This was done intentionally to benefit the domestic Jones Act maritime industry to make the issuance of future waivers for humanitarian or economic reasons more difficult and reinforce the economic protections provided by their regulatory franchise.
Alice DeJuvigny Colarossi, a maritime attorney with Reed Smith LLP in New York City writes on March 20, 2026: “ . . . this is the first Jones Act waiver that has been issued at the request of the Department of Defense (now War) (DoD) under 46 U.S.C. 501(a) since the statute was amended in 2021.“
Under the revised statute, issuing a navigation waiver is a three-step process involving the Secretary of Defense (War), the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security.
The Tampa, Florida-based maritime attorneys, Holland & Knight, posted on March 20, 2026 to their website: “. . . a copy of the [Sec’y of Defense (War)’s] waiver request has not yet been publicly released, as is customary in Jones Act waiver requests from DOW [i.e., the Department of War (DOW) also known as the Department of Defense (DOD)] . . .”
Other maritime legal experts speculate the justification documentation probably remains internal to Congress and the Administration, at least for the time being.
With regards to official justification for the waiver, Holland & Knight also reported in their March 20th post: “The White House Office of Public Liaison stated that the waiver is intended to ‘help ensure that U.S. airfields and military installations are properly supplied, particularly from the U.S. Gulf Coast, so that the U.S. can avoid a shortfall that would adversely affect military operations.’” They noted, that in their opinion, this justification should comply with the revised statute….
FULL REPORT: The anatomy of a Jones Act waiver; A case study of the March 17, 2026 waiver (PDF)