Jones Act

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American shipping  l  All at Sea; How protectionism sank a country's entire merchant fleet. Economist, Oct 7, 2017.
https://www.economist.com/news/f ... d-countrys-shipping

(a) "IN APRIL 1956 the world’s first container ship—the Ideal X—set sail from New Jersey"
(i) SS Ideal X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ideal_X
(ii) Malcolm McLean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcom_McLean
(1913-2001; inventing shipping container [~1955]; founder of SeaLand)

(b) "America's shipping fleet, 17% of the global total in 1960, accounts for just 0.4% today.  Blame a 1920 law known as the Jones Act [officially: Merchant Marine Act of 1920; is named after Senator Wesley Jones, who introduced it], which decrees that trade between domestic ports be carried by American-flagged and -built ships, at least 75% owned and crewed by American citizens. * * * Inflated sea-freight rates push most cargo onto lorries, trains and aircraft, even though these are pricier * * * So whereas 40% of Europe's domestic freight goes by sea, just 2% does in America. Lacking overland routes, Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and Puerto Rico are hardest hit."
(c) "Between 2000 and 2016 the fleet of private-sector Jones-Act ships fell from 193 to 91. Britain binned its Jones-Act equivalent in 1849. Its fleet today has over three times the tonnage of America's."

bin (vt): "British informal  throw (something) away by putting it in a bin"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bin