Beau

If you want to know how much higher they're really expecting gas prices to get, they're pulling out all the stops now.

Ironically, the Jones Act is a byproduct of the American first ideals of the early 1900s.

The 1920 Act basically requires ships moving between American ports to be American-made, American-crewed, and American-flagged.

The idea is that waiving this act will open up domestic routes to foreign-flagged ships.

The problem for Trump is that the protectionist and nationalist policies of 100 years ago are similar to his current protectionist and nationalist policy failures.

They didn't really work as intended.

The American Maritime Partnership, which is a lobbying group, says...

The law sets a high bar.

This waiver exists solely to address an immediate threat to military operations, not to displace American workers or reward foreign operators.

We also reiterate that this waiver will not reduce gas prices.

The maximum potential impact of domestic shipping on the cost of gasoline nationwide is less than one penny per gallon.

A penny a gallon.

That sounds about right based on the napkin math I've heard.

But to be fair, that's coming from a lobbying group that primarily represents U.S.

He went on to note that the biggest share of the cost of gasoline is the price of oil.

He put the impact at fractions of a penny.

Okay, so this isn't likely to work in any meaningful way to reduce gas prices, but it might make people feel better.

And for once, a Trump fix for a problem he created won't make the problem worse.

So that's cool.

And then there might actually be a benefit.