Balsa Research is a tiny nonprofit research organization currently focused on quantifying the impact of the Jones Act on the American economy, and working towards viable reform proposals.
While changing century-old policy is not going to be easy, we continue to see many places where there is neglected groundwork that we’re well positioned to do, and we are improving at doing it with another year of practice under our belts. We’re looking to raise $200,000 to support our work this giving season, though $50,000 would be sufficient to keep the lights on, and we think we are also well positioned to do more with more funding.
Donations will support Balsa’s policy advocacy, either in Jones Act and maritime policy reform or potentially in other planned cause areas (housing reform and NEPA reform) if there is capacity to significantly expand.
Donate here to fund our mainline policy work.
One additional possibility for Balsa, which would be funded entirely separately if it did happen, is for Zvi Mowshowitz to use Balsa as a piece of philanthropic infrastructure to help guide new philanthropic money coming online in 2026 if there is demand. Contact us (hello@balsaresearch.com) if you would like to be involved in such an effort in any capacity, or want to authorize this as a potential use of your funds.
Donate here if you are interested in contributing fully flexible funding.
Quite early in the year, Balsa’s plans for Jones Act investigative work was derailed by a certain Section 301 Investigation, which I wrote about here. In short, the USTR was proposing two significant changes to maritime transport: a $3-5 million fee for Chinese-built ships to deliver imports to American ports, and new, Jones Act-tier restrictions to up to 20% of American maritime exports. All of American industry focused on lobbying against the legibly bad first proposal, sadly no one else was on the ball about how bad the second proposal was because it required a slightly more sophisticated argument. So Balsa stepped in and wrote up a public comment and presented it to the USTR during their public hearing on the proposal. At least in part due to our research and our outreach to maritime industry players, this proposal was basically entirely axed.
After our mid-year write-up on the whole adventure, Balsa did also end up submitting a second comment in response to what we felt was a deeply counterproductive tariff scheme in the updated proposal. This was the first arc played out in miniature; after functionally scrapping both major proposals from the first round, the USTR was proposing that an increasing percentage of American LNG must be shipped out on U.S.-built LNG tankers (there are currently zero in the fleet and no capacity for the shipyards to build any new ones) and that all port crane parts made in China be subject to 100% tariffs. Everyone focused on lobbying against the first policy change which was obviously bad, the second was bad in a more subtle way. So it was once again up to Balsa to point out that the exact setup of the port crane tariffs were structured in a way counterproductive to the stated U.S. policy, would incentivize American ports to buy their cranes from Chinese manufacturers instead of manufacturers in allied countries (there is no domestic port crane manufacturing capacity), and negatively impact port revitalization investments that need to happen.
One piece of good news is that President Trump signed a trade deal with China in November, which resulted in a one-year suspension of all of the punitive measures proposed in the Section 301 investigation. We think there’s a decent chance that the suspension might become indefinite, but it still seemed like a good use of our time to write up our objections should the measures resume in 2026.
We also worked on the Jones Act. We launched a new RFA to investigate the labor impacts of the Jones Act. This is meant to complement our first RFA, which invites academics to look at the economic impacts of the Jones Act. Both are open for applications!
You may also recall that we had already given out grants for two different studies under the first RFA, on economic impacts. These papers are still in the process of being written. We remain confident in both teams and look forward to seeing their results in 2026.
We shored up a few places where we felt like some of the groundwork done by others on the Jones Act were either neglected or outdated. We published two pieces: The Jones Act Index, which works as a very short overview of all the myriad dysfunctions of the current domestic maritime industry, and an operational analysis of what exactly the 93 extant Jones Act eligible vessels get up to.
Besides all that, there is of course the frustratingly intangible work of networking and building a deeper understanding of the shape of the problem. We conducted over forty conversations with stakeholders across the maritime policy landscape, including domestic shipping operators, port executives, and congressional staff. These conversations directly informed our operational analysis of Jones Act vessels and helped us identify which reform framings resonate (and which don't) with different constituencies. We've compiled this primary research into internal documentation mapping stakeholder positions, constraints, and potential pressure points—groundwork that will directly inform our policy binder and draft reform proposals.
Additionally, in the last few months of the year, we brought on a very part-time contractor to help with shipping out more of our policy work.
A breakdown of our 2025 spend to the nearest thousand, for a total of ~$143k:
Considering Balsa’s size, unless fundraising goes exceedingly well, we plan to stay focused on the Jones Act and maritime policy until we crack this nut (i.e. deliver the policy binder) instead of diverting attention across different policy streams.
Currently, the people working on Balsa work are Jenn (me, full time-ish), a contractor who works ten hours a week, plus Zvi Mowshowitz in an advisory capacity. In 2026, we’d like to bring our contractor or another policy analyst on full time, because my own time is somewhat constrained by the overhead of maintaining a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The amount of funding we have in reserve gives us a decent amount of runway, but is insufficient for our grantmaking and hiring ambitions.
We’re looking to raise $200,000, which would be enough to bring on our contractor full-time and give us a reasonable amount of buffer for additional research funding that we would like to disburse. However, we think $50,000 is the minimum for Balsa to be viably funded to the end of 2026.
Here’s what we plan on doing in 2026, should we hit our fundraising goal:
This is the core deliverable that everything else feeds into, that was waylaid by our Section 301 work. The binder will include a short executive summary of the case for reform; one-pagers on specific impacts; a longer technical document synthesizing our funded research and the existing literature; and a FAQ addressing common objections. Much of the work is filling gaps identified through stakeholder conversations, and interpreting the information for specific audiences.
Both teams are expected to submit their papers in 2026. Once results are in, we'll write accessible summaries for non-academic audiences, brief interested Hill offices, and incorporate findings into the policy binder.
The labor angle is underexplored in existing Jones Act research and useful for engaging unions constructively. We're looking for proposals examining questions like: How many jobs does the Jones Act actually protect, and in which states? What's the counterfactual employment picture under reform? What are the job creation effects in industries currently harmed by high shipping costs? A rigorous study here could shift the conversation toward a more nuanced understanding of net labor market effects.
The one-year suspension of Section 301 measures expires in late 2026, and if negotiations with China stall, the proposed port fees and export restrictions could return; we'll track developments and be prepared to submit updated comments or testimony. The SHIPS for America Act proposes expanded cargo preference requirements facing similar vessel availability problems to those we identified in Section 301, and we're developing analysis of cargo preference laws we can deploy if this legislation gains momentum. The goal is readiness to contribute when high-leverage, without letting monitoring consume time that should go toward the policy binder.
We can do even more with additional resources:
Donating is not the only way to give. If you have experience with maritime shipping, naval procurement, connections to labor unions, or anything else you think might be relevant to Jones Act reform, we'd be interested in talking to you and hearing your perspective. Get in touch at hello@balsaresearch.com and let us know how you might be able to help, whether that's sharing your insights, making introductions, or contributing in other meaningful ways.
If you're an economist positioned to publish in peer-reviewed journals, please consider applying to our economy or labor RFAs, and doing direct research on the issue. If you have friends who fit that profile and might be interested in this kind of work, please consider forwarding the RFAs their way.
Balsa Research is still a very small organization (me, another policy analyst at ten hours per week, and Zvi in an unpaid, very part-time advisory role) and our progress this year has been possible only through the generous support of our donors and the many people who have shared their time and expertise with us. We're grateful for this community of supporters and collaborators who continue to believe in the importance of this work.