The Jones Act under NAFTA and its effects on the Canadian shipbuilding industry

This paper explores the foundations of the Jones Act, and the state of the shipbuilding industry prior to and after the negotiations of the Canada-US Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement, drawing some conclusions about the impact of the Jones Act on the industry. [...] The purpose of the paper is to examine the origins of the Jones Act and to evaluate, as best as possible given publicly available data, the impact of the Act on the Canadian shipbuilding industry. [...] The paper seeks to understand the state of the industry prior to the Canada–US Trade Agreement in order to examine the impacts of that and subsequent trade agreements. [...] It examines the rationale for US legislation, bringing the reader to the mid-1980s, the period prior to the negotiation of the Canada-US Trade Agreement. [...] The paper next examines the importance of shipbuilding in the context of, first, the Canada-US free trade negotiations and, later, the NAFTA negotiations, before addressing the costs of the existing trade barriers to the Canadian industry.