Oil’s Wild Day Has Trump Rethinking the Jones Act
In a single trading session, crude swung by roughly $28 — the widest range since the pandemic.
Wild ride.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
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If there’s one thing you must know about Bloomberg Opinion, it’s that no column we write is more than six degrees of separation from the Jones Act. I haven’t actually tested that hypothesis, but Mark Gongloff once told me that, and I absolutely believe him. I’ve been working at this place long enough to know that nothing gets these writers going quite like hating on the obscure 1920s law that requires all maritime trade between US ports to be carried on ships built, crewed, AND owned by Americans. Our columnists have written about scrapping the thing pretty much every year like clockwork, so of course, when this Reuters headline crossed the transom, everyone’s ears perked up: