Garamendi Slams Jones Act Waiver as Maritime Policy Retreat Amid Iran War

Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA-08), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee and co-author of the SHIPS for America Act, issued a sharply critical statement Thursday in response to the White House's 90-day extension of the Jones Act waiver permitting non-American-flagged vessels to transport domestic cargo.

Garamendi rejected the administration's framing outright, arguing that waiving the Jones Act would have no meaningful effect on fuel prices. "The sky-high cost of gas has almost nothing to do with domestic shipping," he said, attributing price pressures instead to what he described as a "reckless and stupid war of choice in Iran."

The Jones Act, formally the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires goods transported between U.S. ports to be carried on vessels that are American-built, -owned, -flagged, and -crewed. Proponents argue the law sustains a domestic maritime industrial base with direct national security implications; critics contend it raises shipping costs by limiting competition. The Trump administration's waiver creates a temporary exception to those requirements.

Garamendi framed the extension not as a market correction but as a strategic capitulation. He argued that foreign vessels operating under the waiver are not subject to the same labor and safety standards imposed on American ships, making the arrangement structurally tilted against domestic operators. "This is not competition, it's surrender," he said.

The congressman also raised concern about Chinese shipping interests benefiting from the opening, contending that the policy undermines domestic manufacturing employment and increases U.S. dependence on foreign maritime capacity — an acute vulnerability in any sustained military or logistical conflict scenario.

Garamendi's counterproposal is reconstruction rather than retreat: shoring up the domestic maritime industrial base through investment and policy support rather than waiving the regulatory framework that sustains it. As co-author of the SHIPS for America Act, he has a legislative vehicle for that agenda, though its prospects depend heavily on the political trajectory of both the Iran conflict and broader trade policy debates in Congress.

The statement reflects a growing Democratic effort to tie the Jones Act waiver to the administration's Iran posture — framing what would otherwise be a narrow maritime regulatory dispute as evidence of broader strategic incoherence.