This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, March 11th,

2024. I'm Caleb Brown.

In the grocery stores in Puerto Rico,

the potatoes come from Canada.

That might be confusing to people who aren't

already familiar with the punishing shipping regulations the US imposes on all of us

and the people of Puerto Rico perhaps pay the highest price of all.

Economist Russell Hillberry has researched the impacts of the Jones Act, that 100-year-old

law that makes trade, even trade with our fellow Americans more difficult. We spoke last week. The Jones Act, for

careful listeners of the Cato Daily Podcast, will be well aware of the Jones Act's

pernicious effects when it comes to trade and even less trade

than just the movement of goods even within the United States even among US

states. So you've looked carefully at the situation in Puerto Rico,

which is a US territory.

Puerto Ricans are Americans, news flash.

But Puerto Rico is in a weird place

where almost all of the things that they might need from the mainland of the United States

have to be delivered by Jones Act vessels.

And so if I understand your research correctly, the incentive to buy from foreigners things that they could get from mainland United States,

that decision is not necessarily in the favor of U.S. producers or U.S. sellers. Yes, that's right. the air or by sea. And so the Jones Act is affecting those things that typically come by sea.

While it is possible to take things that might normally go by sea by air, it's extremely expensive to do that.

And so most goods, when you look at U.S. imports that come from outside of Canada and Mexico

...