Daniel Inouye: “Cargo preference is not new. In fact, every nation on this globe that has a maritime fleet has cargo preference. The…”

“Cargo preference is not new. In fact, every nation on this globe that has a maritime fleet has cargo preference. The United States was the last nation to adopt cargo preference as part of its economic policy. How does cargo preference operate? Whenever we buy oil from Saudi Arabia, the requirement is if you are going to buy Saudi oil, it will be shipped on Saudi ships, and the only time an American ship may carry that Saudi oil is when there are no Saudi ships available. We have no say as to how much they are going to charge for the shipment of that crude oil. Whenever we buy automobiles from Toyota, Mitsubishi, and God knows what else, they come in on Japanese ships, not on American vessels, because that is part of the cargo preference agreement. Our cargo preference laws are very limited. It applies only to humanitarian goods, agricultural products. For example, when starvation was rampant in Ethiopia, the United States, like most other nations, responded by sending food. Under our laws, it says that 50 percent of those products must be shipped on American vessels; the other 50 percent on foreign vessels.”