In 1773, colonial patriots tossed tea into Boston Harbor to protest the British Crown’s mercantilist grip on trade. The grievance was not just about taxes but about economic suffocation. Today, over two centuries later, three million American citizens in Puerto Rico find themselves shackled by a regulatory anachronism that would have made King George blush. The culprit is the Jones Act, a federal maritime statute that has transformed Puerto Rico from a strategic asset into a captive economy.
The Jones Act, formally the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires all goods transported by water between US ports to be carried on US-built, US-owned, and US-crewed ships. In practice, this means Puerto Rico, an island with no viable overland alternatives, must pay inflated prices for virtually everything. A 2024 analysis by the Cato Institute found that Puerto Rican consumers pay up to 151 percent more for shipping costs compared to neighboring islands not subject to the Jones Act. Worse, this regulatory captivity prevents Puerto Rico from importing US liquefied natural gas, even as it builds LNG terminals, because there are no Jones Act-compliant LNG tankers.
This is not merely inefficient. It is indefensible.
President Trump has the chance to do what no president has dared: liberate Puerto Rico economically without statehood, by repealing or exempting it from the Jones Act and establishing it as a free trade zone. Such a move would not only restore Puerto Rico’s prosperity but preempt the political conundrum of turning the island into a blue-state welfare recipient. Trump can fix Puerto Rico in a way that aligns with America First principles: through deregulation, tax relief, and economic sovereignty.
Puerto Rico’s economic decline is no mystery. It mirrors that of other post-colonial economies strangled by dependency and bureaucracy. Its population has shrunk by 16 percent over the past decade. Its median income is lower than that of Mississippi, the poorest state in the union. Energy costs are double the national average. Its roads, ports, and electrical grid remain in various states of disrepair, not for lack of federal aid, but because that aid is filtered through a corrupt local political class with little incentive to produce measurable results.
By ending the Jones Act’s chokehold, Puerto Rico would instantly become a competitive entrepôt for global trade. Freed from the burden of using overpriced US ships, it could import food, fuel, and medicine at competitive prices, reducing living costs across the island. According to a 2023 report by the Foundation for Economic Education, lifting the Jones Act could boost Puerto Rico’s GDP by as much as 7 percent in five years. Add to that the strategic establishment of a tax-advantaged free trade zone, and Puerto Rico could become the Singapore of the Caribbean, drawing logistics, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical firms away from China and back into the US orbit.
The model is not hypothetical. Singapore and Hong Kong were both post-colonial territories that prospered through radical openness to trade, rule-of-law commercial institutions, and a rejection of dependency economics. Singapore, with fewer natural resources than Puerto Rico, became a global hub by welcoming capital and eliminating red tape. Puerto Rico, with a highly educated, bilingual workforce and a US legal system, is already positioned to do the same.
Critics will argue, as they always do, that this would destabilize the US shipping industry. But let us be honest. The Jones Act has not preserved American shipbuilding. It has enriched a few politically connected shipping interests while causing systemic harm to peripheral economies. According to a 2024 Congressional Research Service study, only four major shipyards in the US produce large commercial ships, and fewer than 100 ships remain in Jones Act-compliant service. This is not an industry. It is a zombie subsidy. Repealing the Jones Act would not destroy US shipping, it would force it to become competitive.
Nor is Puerto Rican governance a valid reason to perpetuate economic bondage. Yes, the island has suffered from mismanagement and corruption. But it is precisely this political stagnation that economic liberty can dislodge. Trump should pair the repeal of the Jones Act with a presidential commission to investigate waste and fraud in Puerto Rican governance. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and economic vitality is the best antidote to cronyism.
As of July 2025, Puerto Rico is preparing to implement LNG infrastructure that still cannot source gas from the mainland because of the Jones Act. Meanwhile, American LNG producers, flush with surplus and seeking markets, are left to export to Europe and Asia while Puerto Rico imports from Oman. This is absurd. It is also avoidable. President Trump’s cabinet, now fully in place with economic hawks like Scott Bessent at Treasury and Sean Duffy at Transportation, is well positioned to drive this reform through both statutory and regulatory channels.
Ending the Jones Act and establishing a Puerto Rican free trade zone also avoids the looming political trap of statehood. Democrats have long seen Puerto Rico as a future stronghold, promising it statehood to secure two Senate seats. Republicans, understandably, have resisted. But resistance without vision is defensive, not strategic. By giving Puerto Rico economic power without political annexation, Trump can defuse the demand for statehood by making it unnecessary. Freedom, not federalization, should be the conservative response to colonialism.
Puerto Rico does not need to become a state to succeed. It needs to be set free.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that the best government is the one closest to the people. But Puerto Rico has had Washington over its shoulder for a century, and what has it produced? Debt, decay, dependency. This is not destiny. It is policy. And it can be reversed.
President Trump is uniquely suited to enact this transformation. He is not beholden to maritime unions or fossilized bureaucracies. He built his political identity on blowing up bad deals. The Jones Act is one of the worst. Fixing Puerto Rico would not just be good policy, it would be political poetry: the president who wants to build walls where necessary and break chains where possible.
Imagine a Puerto Rico where shipping lanes hum with competition, where goods arrive from every continent, where the island is no longer a backwater of federal neglect but a crown jewel of American capitalism. Imagine its youth staying home to build the future instead of fleeing to Florida for jobs. Picture a skyline filled with cranes, not because of hurricane repair, but because of private investment.
This is not a dream. It is a plan. It just needs a president with the will to act.
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I suspect that Trump has no reason not to do this and once it’s on his radar, it’ll get an EO pause that will prime the pump (and he’ll advocate for its congressional repeal).
& do same for Guam & Wake Islands
Same for Guam Wake Island, USVI