Sadler, a veteran naval officer and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation (the think take behind Project 2025 but also several maritime initiatives), has been one of the few voices in Washington consistently beating the drum on maritime readiness, sealift capacity, and the critical role of the U.S. Merchant Marine in strategic competition. He’s not just another bureaucrat with a résumé. He’s a serious policy strategist who understands that America bleeds influence without hulls in the water, flags on sterns, and skilled mariners at the helm.
Maritime historian, professor, and YouTuber, Sal Mercogliano, who rose to mainstream fame with appearances on the CNN network a year ago on the Dali incident provided comments with a deep historical context.
He pointed to decisions in the time following World War 2 (late 1940s through the late 1970s), where: “…the United States allowed its merchant marine to remain stable, while global ocean trade grew exponentially.”
Outgoing Federal Maritime Commissioner Carl Bentzel told Seatrade Maritime News that yesterday’s FMCmeeting debate and vote ended in agreement that there should be an investigation into whether Spain’s reticence to handle UScargo involved violations of international agreements.
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Bentzel pointed out that these contracts can be for the carriage of all sorts of cargo, not just weapons, “including humanitarian aid, in support of the Gazan population.”
Earlier, I stupidly tweeted out an article about the Jones Act and shipbuilding and Colin Grabow, from the Cato Institute, liked it (he was quoted in the article). I looked him up and decided to listen to this video on the shipbuilding competition between China and the US, where he and a lawyer for United Steelworkers were on the panel. China is eating their lunch, and it’s the ruling elites’ own fault, yet they scapegoat China for it. The double standards over China’s “unfair economic practices” AKA the subsidizing of their shipbuilding industry irritates me (liars irritate me even more). States give subsidies, grants, and tax breaks to corporations, all the time. Fincantieri Marinette Marine is just one example, but Wisconsin had done the same for Foxconn. Foxconn received tax breaks and $3B in subsidies, which was “the largest ever subsidy provided by a state to a foreign company”, despite not living up to their promises.
Colin Grabow wants to end the Jones Act. I’ve made at least three video clips regarding the Jones Act, two with Sal Mercogliano from What’s Going On With Shipping and one from the government-funded CSIS (I’ve posted them, below).Spoiler alert: Sal says that the problem isn’t the Jones Act.Meanwhile, both CSIS and the Cato Institute (part of the Atlas Network) blame the Jones Act. Deregulation is a wet dream of big corporations (which fund both the Cato Institute and CSIS).
U.S. strategy against Russia must succeed in order to make success of U.S. strategy against China possible; Ukraine is the U.S. proxy against Russia, and Taiwan is the U.S. proxy against China. Ukraine became a U.S. ‘ally’ or vassal-nation in 2014, but Taiwan isn’t yet officially a U.S. ‘ally’ or vassal-nation.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 