There is a phrase that has always defined the American character in crisis: improvise and adapt. The Jones Act, passed in 1920, was not designed for a world in which the Strait of Hormuz goes dark and crude oil climbs past a hundred dollars a barrel.
So President Trump has done what presidents in emergencies do — he has reached for the available lever.
The White House confirmed Wednesday that Trump has issued a sixty-day waiver suspending the century-old maritime law, temporarily lifting its requirement that goods shipped between American ports travel on American-built, American-owned, and American-crewed vessels.
It is a practical measure born of an impractical moment.
“President Trump’s decision to issue a 60-day Jones Act waiver is just another step to mitigate the short-term disruptions to the oil market,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The action, she added, will help oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and coal flow freely to American ports.
The conflict with Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s great arteries of commerce, through which roughly a fifth of global oil supply normally passes. The consequences are being felt at every level of the energy economy.
The Jones Act has long drawn adversaries from opposite corners. Its defenders argue it is a matter of national security, protecting domestic shipbuilding, and ensuring a reliable maritime workforce for times of war.
Its critics — equally sincere — have long contended that a law born a century ago raises costs and imposes rigidity precisely when flexibility matters most.
Past administrations have reached for the same waiver in moments of need: after Katrina, after Harvey, and Irma.
The waiver, in other words, is the law working as designed.
But this moment carries a harder edge. Beyond the economics lies an alliance problem, one the president has made plain he is unwilling to ignore.
Despite rising oil prices and American pressure, several partner nations have declined to join expanded efforts to secure Persian Gulf shipping lanes. Trump made his frustration public Wednesday, writing that he wonders what would happen if the United States simply “finished off” what remains of Iran’s government and left other countries — those who rely most heavily on the Strait — to take responsibility for it themselves.
It was not quite a threat. It was not quite a rhetorical question. It was something in between: the language of a man who believes others have grown comfortable with an arrangement they had no hand in building and no intention of defending.
Whether that pressure will move the allies, or whether the waiver will hold the domestic energy supply long enough for the conflict to find its resolution — these are the open questions of an open crisis.
