The fate of millions of pounds of seafood destined for U.S. grocery stores, restaurants, food banks, and schools is hanging in the balance right now.At least that’s what Inge Andreassen, president of Seattle-based American Seafoods, one of the world’s biggest harvesting companies, recently warned amid an ongoing battle with the federal government over a century-old maritime law. The fight involves tons of seafood piling up in cold-storage facilities and a 100-feet long railroad that goes nowhere. And if it drags on, it stands to create bottlenecks along a supply chain that has already seen numerous disruptions during the pandemic.Let’s start from the beginning: In mid-August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began issuing fines to two of American Seafoods’ shipping and logistics subsidiary companies—Alaska Reefer Management and Kloosterboer International Forwarding—over alleged violations of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. CBP alleges that since 2012, the companies have been evading the law’s requirements by arranging to send seafood on a comically brief round-trip journey on a tiny Canadian railroad to nowhere.More commonly known as the Jones Act, the law requires that any ship carrying merchandise between two points of the country be built, owned, and staffed by U.S. citizens. It also has to be U.S.-flagged, meaning that it operates under American laws. Businesses and opponents of the Jones Act have long argued that these requirements are burdensome and challenging to meet: Not only is the United States a minor player in the global ship manufacturing industry, but U.S.-flagged ships are also typically more expensive to operate due to higher crew and maintenance costs.
