As a historian and analyst of American maritime policy, the actions by China do demonstrate an unreasonable targeting of the maritime, logistics, shipbuilding sectors, and can serve to dominate or restrict U.S. commerce.  

This situation is not a unique one, as the United States encountered a similar situation over a century ago when the First World War broke out in 1914.  At that time, the U.S. merchant marine only accounted for 8 percent of the world fleet and most American imports and exports were shipped on foreign flag ships, particularly those of the British merchant marine.  American ships only transported 11 percent.  At the time, the British merchant marine held a similar dominant position in shipping that China holds today.  

With the declaration of war, ships of the British and German merchant fleets were withdrawn from service and American exports. The United States’ largest export product – cotton – accumulated on the docks of U.S. ports.  The New York Stock Exchange closed, and the nation experienced an economic recession.  Fortunately, for the United States, it had a large coastal merchant marine and a domestic maritime industry to fall back upon.  In 1916, the Shipping Act aimed to jump start a renewed shipping program by creating the U.S. Shipping Board – the forerunner of the modern Federal Maritime Commission and the Maritime Administration.  The concern was the dominance and monopoly that foreign shipping lines were exerting against American commerce.  

These efforts, along with the creation of the Emergency Fleet Corporation in 1917, led to a massive shipbuilding program and the United States challenging the British for maritime dominance in trade with new oil-fueled cargo ships that could range the oceans. To ensure that the wartime fleet was put into international and domestic trade, Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1920.  Known as the Jones Act, it provided for federal oversight of international shipping rates, efforts to promote shipbuilding, protection for American mariners, free competition of American ships in international trade, and to protect the coastal trade, known as cabotage.  This effort, along with Merchant Marine Acts in 1928 and 1936 safeguarded that the United States was prepared for the Second World War and capable of shipping the Arsenal of Democracy from the home front to the war front.