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Cabotage Grows at Unprecedented Pace, AMP

[ November 1, 2025   //   Gary Burrows ]

The American Maritime Partnership said it has released a study by Seafarers’ Rights International (SRI) that finds cabotage laws exist on 85 percent of the world’s coastlines and are growing in number at an unprecedented pace.

The Cabotage Laws of the World report, commissioned by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), compares nations’ enforcement of their cabotage laws, which restrict waterborne transportation of goods or passengers between two points within the same country to domestic carriers. This ensures that critical services remain reliable within a country in times of crisis, and are increasingly essential to national security, economic stability and maritime resilience, SRI said.

The number of countries with protectionist laws similar to the Jones Act has increased from 91 in 2018, when the report was last conducted, to 105 in 2025. While changes between 2018 and 2025 were expected, according to the report, “cabotage laws were found to have spread around the world faster than ever before in the centuries-long history of cabotage.”

“Countries appear no longer to be viewing cabotage as merely economic policy, but also as essential to national security and strategic autonomy in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment,” said Deirdre Fitzpatrick, co-author of the report and executive director of SRI. These nations are a remarkably diverse group that are strengthening maritime strategies “for a world grown more uncertain since the pandemic.”

U.S. maritime cabotage is governed by the Jones Act, passed in 1920 that ensures America’s domestic shipping is strengthened by requiring vessels transporting cargo between U.S. ports to be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, U.S.-flagged and U.S.-crewed. Similar laws exist for airplanes, trains and trucks transporting cargo in the country.

“The United States remains the global benchmark for strong cabotage and maritime policy, and it is no surprise that nations confronting today’s geopolitical challenges are reinforcing their own cabotage frameworks to preserve sovereignty and safeguard critical maritime infrastructure,” said David Heindel, president of the Seafarers International Union and char of the IFT Seafarers’ section.

Jennifer Carpenter, AMP president, said the U.S. must “take the lead in securing our own maritime border and domestic supply chain and not let foreign governments or foreign carriers decide our fate. Just as we wouldn’t allow foreign airlines to transport passengers between U.S. cities or foreign trucks to ply U.S. highways, the same principle has long applied for maritime.”

The U.S. must “contest the emergence of the new global geopolitical order,” Carpenter added.

The U.S. domestic maritime industry comprises 40,000 Jones Act vessels that are U.S. built, owned and crewed. The law sustains nearly 650,000 American jobs, US$41.6 billion in labor compensation, and more than US$154.8 billion in annual economic output.

Cabotage Laws of the World is available at https://tinyurl.com/4udax7vj

Tags: Amercan Maritime Partnership, International Transport Workers’ Federation, Jones Act, Seafarers' Rights International