{"id":519748,"date":"2026-03-12T20:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/519748\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T20:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:09:08","slug":"trump-weighs-jones-act-waiver-amid-rising-fuel-prices-white-house-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/519748\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump weighs Jones Act waiver amid rising fuel prices, White House says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration is prepared to waive the Jones Act<\/a> to loosen shipping rules as the Iran war<\/a> continues, the White House said Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 100-year-old statute requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be carried on ships that are U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged and U.S.-crewed, and it limits the number of tankers domestic shippers can use.<\/p>\n

“In the interest of national defense, the White House is considering waiving the Jones Act for a limited period of time to ensure vital energy products and agricultural necessities are flowing freely to U.S. ports,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to CBS News. “This action has not been finalized.”<\/p>\n

Waiving the rule would allow foreign ships to move fuel between U.S. ports, helping to ease supply disruptions and potentially lower energy prices<\/a>, according to experts.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas prices have surged since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran<\/a> on February 28, raising costs for motorists and creating inflationary pressures.<\/p>\n

Brent crude, which hovered around $60 in early January, rose 8% on Thursday and briefly topped $100, according to FactSet. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, jumped nearly 9% to $95.02 a barrel.<\/p>\n

Energy costs are flaring even after the Trump administration<\/a> and the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday that member countries in the organization would inject a total of\u00a0400 million barrels<\/a>\u00a0into global energy markets to shore up oil supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gas prices, which are influenced by the cost of oil, taxes and other seasonal factors, also swung higher on Thursday, hitting $3.60 a gallon, according to\u00a0AAA<\/a>. That’s up about 60 cents since before the war started.<\/p>\n

\n Edited by<\/p>\n

Alain Sherter<\/a> and <\/p>\n

Aimee Picchi<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration is prepared to waive the Jones Act to loosen shipping rules as the Iran war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,801,45063,644],"class_list":["post-519748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-iran","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}