“But we have a lot of shippers and … a lot of people who work in the shipping industry that don’t want the Jones Act lifted. The law costs Puerto Rico hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and now, in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, the costs to import food, fuel and other supplies will spike amid the island’s economic devastation. Trump’s comments are a galling admission that he’s weighing an industry’s profits against the needs of 3.5 million Americans facing “apocalyptic” conditions in Puerto Rico. HuffPost reached out to a handful of U.S. shipping organizations to ask if they oppose Trump waiving the Jones Act for Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts. Requests for comment from two offices of National Shipping of America ― one in Puerto Rico, another on the U.S. mainland ― were not returned.

Source: Huffington Post September 28, 2017 00:11 UTC