The US Maritime Show: Coming to a Theater Near You – Watch the Trailer
With only a few weeks remaining in the calendar countdown, the largest collection of U.S. Maritime owners. operators, seafarers, shipyards and supply chain manufacturers will assemble again in New Orleans, La., during the first week of December. Much like a Hollywood production, the week can be a prequel, sequel, saga or franchise blockbuster. Standing with the US Maritime industry we should hope for a long running franchise.
The attendees visiting the city this year will be faced with more than several important dates and activities forcing decisions prior to their arrival. Decisions determining their anticipation or anxiety when answers are received. Those dates and decisions are also occurring after releasing this editorial opinion. For us to predict how these decisions will fall is likely compared to a Tarot Card reading or a visit to a Voodoo priestess. After all this is New Orleans.
With “filming & production” underway and anticipating the movie release, let’s provide this opinion as a “trailer”.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a “Jones Act” waiver on March 17, 2026. The longest and broadest waiver of the Act since the end of World War II. We believe this to be a lead topic of discussion at the maritime show in Louisiana, considering the current extension is listed to expire on November 15, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. The “end” provided that energy products included in the waiver are loaded prior to the expiration date and time. Foreign flag voyages & cargo moved during the waiver is reaching over 400 voyages and millions of barrels of petroleum distributed. A strong indication the market is important to the US Flag and commerce. Future inventories and movements will be affected despite a new extension announced or not as we enter into the winter season. A rush to load cargo prior to midnight of the end date will occur. Cargo will be delivered by foreign flag after November 15.
Consider this discussion as the opening scene of the “trailer” on December 1. Question if the show opens with a group photo of roughly four thousand cheering the Department of Homeland Security announcement that the waiver has ended and no further extensions will be issued by the Administration. Or will the announcement extend the waiver into another period?
A follow-on extension will result in a call for a moment of silence in New Orleans signaling the possible loss of 90,000 American seafaring jobs, and adding thousands of lost employment opportunities in shipbuilding and port operations. All occurring during the year of “Maritime Dominance”. With that thought let’s remember trailers never give up the movie ending.
We intend to arrive as “extras” with balloons and the hope to celebrate the end of the extensions, followed by support of the Flag and coastal registry in the Ships for America Act. Give us a chance to be included in the photo opportunity. That said we will also look for a speaking part in the production with the simple message that the “Jones Act” debate needs to be fixed by addressing the cost to build and the future ability to renew our coastal fleets. Subsidize our commercial shipyards if the intent is to support US commercial shipbuilding.
If the US shipyard elects to build for defense, let them enjoy the government support that market has been provided for decades. Defense aside, the selected commercial shipyards should enjoy their own support and join the Far East and European yards we are so anxious to compete with. They are heavily subsidized and their reported cost of delivery into the market does not reflect their government support.
China does not build at the price advertised.
The solution in the coastal market should not be the orchestrated elimination of selected commodity sectors within the registry while separate political decisions favor others trading outside of “energy” and protected in the same legislation. The problem is cost to build not the market.
US commercial shipbuilding has been the discussion of the 2026 year. Back of the envelope calculations show over one trillion dollars of new projects in defense spending providing surface & subsurface tonnage, autonomous warfare and drones. Warfare and defense shipbuilding has changed. Requirements to address more than several warfronts have identified the need to protect both our national security and global trade with new technology. Let our Navy and Military industrial base take precedence and build to meet those requirements.
US commercial shipbuilding will need take a back seat to that effort for now based upon shipyard “capacity” issues alone. And “capacity” is not only the number of qualified shipyards or graving docks. It addresses our supply chain and labor issues also. That said, defense taking the lead and the 2027 Defense Act funding will raise discussions of how that funding is distributed. The first opening projects have been issued to a single shipyard, with new ownership prior to the award, and determined by a single VCM government contract source. Historically, protests and GAO audits have been the largest issue of military industrial base delays.
There is no intention for us to pack our bags with candles and stand in silence listening to a rumored end of the Jones Act, the failure of coastal registered vessels flying the flag or the delay in commercial shipyard support. In fact, with several other crucial “energy” decisions affecting the industry, it is our opinion, the Administration would benefit announcing NO FURTHER WAIVERS OR EXTENSIONS will be issued prior to the opening day in New Orleans while they contend with another crucial date of November 3rd.
An announcement offered in the trailer by the lead actor or director in the production? Maybe so. However, movie trailers rarely announce a huge turn of events prior to release of the movie.
What is equally important to the development of energy in the coastal trades is another decision allowing sanctioned Russian diesel oil delivered into the US market. National news has reported three vessels departing Russian refinery terminals and one of the three arriving November 7 in New York and New Jersey. A second tanker reported arriving in Houston and a third arriving, with the most disturbing of news, into Norfolk. Our largest U.S. Navy homeport and shipbuilding center on the East Coast.
The foreign owner of the third vessel quickly reporting the vessel, port and cargo carried was misinformation as the ship was carrying fertilizer not diesel oil. A smart move considering merchant vessels maintaining their regulatory requirements and 1900 sanctioned vessels ignoring them have been attacked, damaged and with those damages considered a constructive total loss. Misinformation aside, the U.S. Treasury Department has issued a temporary general license bypassing aspects of the 2022 Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act and our opinion ignoring National Security.
Can the trailer lead us to the true story?
The answer is being discussed in New Orleans as Maritime domain awareness. AIS disruption and the concern of 1900 sanctioned “ghost” vessels entering new levels of cyber & National security concerns. The latest technology presented by Quartermaster AI with live demonstrations introducing its SmartMast technology and collection of data mapping the world’s oceans at Workboat during the show.
The global security problem has also gathered a new audience as dockworkers around the world called a strike effort on Friday October 30, 2026. An action reported at 113 ports & terminals in 22 countries. Our US west coast ports with the ILWU included. The strike and walkout being advertised as an effort against the militarization of ports and shipments of war-related cargo and tagged as “Dockworkers do not work for war”. Rising living costs, and wages were also presented during the “strike” as a result of geopolitical issues worldwide.
Has the trailer identified the good guys and the bad guys the final production will produce? It certainly has the ability to go beyond a drama and into an action film. Let’s hope the film does not become the “Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. Unfortunately, this is no joking matter as all of the issues waiting for positive decisions are raising costs and disrupting US and global trade. More importantly, seafarers are losing their lives and little commercial industry effort is developing to provide protection of vessel and crew.
See you in New Orleans. Bring balloons.
