MW What is the Jones Act? Trump's waiving the century-old shipping law - and this stock is getting hurt.

By Claudia Assis and Victor Reklaitis

White House says the waiver will 'allow vital resources like oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and coal to flow freely to U.S. ports for sixty days'

Gasoline prices, such as those seen at a Chevron gas station in Houston earlier this week, have risen since the start of the Iran conflict.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday took the much-anticipated step of waiving a 1920 law known as the Jones Act in an effort to combat a surge in prices for crude oil and other key commodities sparked by the ongoing conflict with Iran.

The waiver for 60 days was hitting shares of Kinder Morgan $(KMI)$, the biggest owner of U.S. oil tankers. Its stock recently was down 1.1%, while the S&P 500 equity index SPX shed 0.5%.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that the Trump administration was considering a waiver. On Wednesday, Leavitt said in a statement that the president had issued a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act, describing the move as "just another step to mitigate the short-term disruptions to the oil market as the U.S. military continues meeting the objectives of Operation Epic Fury."

The waiver allows foreign ships to carry fuel to refineries on the East Coast. The Jones Act restricts waterborne oil shipments between U.S. destinations to ships that are U.S. flagged and U.S. built, leading to higher costs.

The mandate has been waived before, such as in 2022 when the Biden administration took that step to aid recovery efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona. There was also a waiver in 2021 after a ransomware attack on a key pipeline.

"This action will allow vital resources like oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and coal to flow freely to U.S. ports for sixty days, and the Administration remains committed to continuing to strengthen our critical supply chains," Leavitt said in her statement on Wednesday.

Oil traders largely were taking their cues from other developments, however. Oil prices (CL00) (BRN00) were gaining Wednesday after Iran said U.S. and Israel airstrikes hit one of its key natural-gas fields, while nearby oil and petrochemical facilities also came under attack. West Texas Intermediate crude recently was up about 2% to around $98 a barrel, while Brent crude tacked on 5% to $109 a barrel.

Trump's 60-day waiver "will have a minimal impact on fuel prices, but does help alleviate the supply chain, providing more options to get fuel to U.S. markets," Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a social-media post.

The higher costs associated with using only U.S. vessels under the Jones Act mean that it can be three times more expensive to ship a barrel of crude from Texas's Eagle Ford shale formation to New York than it is to ship it from Texas to Canada, according to a J.P. Morgan note from 2022.

Trump had been considering waiving the Jones Act as energy prices shot up following the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28. Oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, a key Mideast shipping route, are at a standstill, and on-land export options are severely limited.

Wednesday's move is the broadest Jones Act waiver in recent history. It would allow cheaper foreign-flagged tankers to compete on U.S. coastal routes, including the most critical: The corridor from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast.

Energy-infrastructure company Kinder Morgan owns the largest U.S. tanker fleet, with 16 vessels, and could be hurt significantly by the waiver.

But Kinder Morgan's fleet is fully contracted, with only one contract rolling off midyear, which could protect at least its near-term revenue, analysts at TPH said in a recent note. Medium-term re-contracting would bear watching, the analysts said.

A Kinder Morgan spokesperson said that all of the company's vessels are under term agreements, so the waiver "will have no impact on our business."

-Claudia Assis -Victor Reklaitis

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March 18, 2026 11:53 ET (15:53 GMT)

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