December 2, 2025 • 40 mins
The Trump administration’s policies could have profound effects on the marine shipping industry that go well beyond US shores. In this Talking Transports podcast, former US Federal Maritime Commission Chairman Louis Sola joins Lee Klaskow, Bloomberg Intelligence senior transportation and logistics analyst, to discuss the shifting landscape of US maritime policy. Sola shares insights on shipbuilding challenges, tariff impacts, chokepoint vulnerabilities and the importance of strengthening national security through a resilient supply chain. He also reflects on restarting the cruise industry during Covid-19, his work combating sanctions evasion and his new role advising clients on trade, energy and infrastructure. Sola talks about how his time in the US Army put him on the path toward a career in transportation, which has included selling luxury yachts, and his time in public service.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hi everyone, this is Lee Clasgow and we're Talking Transports.
Welcome to Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports podcast. I'm your host,
Lee Klaskow, Senior Freight, Transportation and Logistics analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence,
Bloomberg's and house research arm of almost five hundred analysts
and strategists around the globe. A quick public service announcement
before we dive in. Your support is instrumental to keep
(00:28):
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you've got ideas, feedback, or just want to talk transports,
I'm always happy to connect. You can find me on
the Bloomberg terminal LinkedIn, or on ex at Logistics Late.
I'm very excited to have with us today. Louis Sola
a partner at the lobbying firm Thorn Run Lewis Springs
(00:50):
nearly two decades of public and private sector leadership in transportation, trade, infrastructure,
and maritime policy. He is a former chairman and Commissioner
of the US Federal Maritime Commission. He previously served as
a Florida State Commissioner, where he led initiatives on transportation,
economic development, and infrastructure investment across the state. He also
(01:12):
is a seasoned maritime entrepreneur. He founded ever Marine, a
leading gap brokerage firm specializing in luxury vessels across the Americas,
and he's also a decorated US Army veteran. Welcome to
talking Transports, Lewis, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Lee. I'm very proud to be here and look forward
to the conversation we're going to have here on Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And also before we start off, so thank you for
your service, your time in the Army much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Twelve years. I enjoyed every minute of it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Super Before we dive in, you want to talk a
little bit about your experience in the military and how
that led you into the world of transportation. Well, if
it wasn't for the military, I definitely wouldn't be where
I am now. I mean had a young kid growing
up in Indiana, the son of a barber.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I never saw the ocean or water before.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So it was it was the government that you know,
took me and educated me from eighteen years old.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I never paid for a.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Penny of any of my education, and you know, they
found out that I was good at languages, and next thing,
you know, I was working in the US Council in Munich,
Germany when the wall came down. So I think the
US government and the military for for all that they've
done for.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Me, that's great. So from your vantage point, you know,
you're one of the large lobbying firms there in d C.
And you're working a lot in the maritime industry. You know,
what is the state of the maritime industry from your
vantage point.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Well, I don't think the state of the maritime industry
has been like this for a very long time. Probably
not you know, since World War Two when we had
the Liberty Ships program and some of the others. President
Trump has really come out strong with he wants a
strong maritime and wants a strong trading platform, so to speak,
(03:00):
not only with shipbuilding but also with ports and with
trade around the world. So what we're doing is we're
starting from over on a lot of these initiatives and
a lot of these programs, and it's very exciting to
see where they're going. And you know, to have a
front row seat like I do right now, talking to
decision makers the Administration, Congress, Senate, Department Transportation. It's very
(03:25):
exciting and I think that, you know, we're going to
be in a lot better place in a couple of
years than we are now or where we have been.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You know, as I mentioned in the intro, you're past
commissioner of the FMC. Can you talk about your time there?
You know, what accomplishments did you kind of see while
you were there that you're kind of most proud of?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, the Federal Maritime Commissioner, you know, to give a
background for some of your listeners, you know it was formed.
The original was was the shipping the shipping board after
the opening of the Panama Canal, I think was in
nineteen seventeen, and over the years it's transformed a little bit,
most notably in nineteen sixty one, I believe that you
(04:07):
know where we became the Federal Maritime Commission. Some of
our past chairman's were Joseph Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's father.
After he was the chairman of the Securities in Exchange Commission,
he came over and became the chairman of the Federal
Maritime Commission. So what the Federal Maritime Commission is in
charge of is basically all commercial activities on the water.
(04:28):
And last year I believe that we regulated over five
trillion dollars for goods leaving and entering the United States
and everything that has to do with those goods in
connection to the supply chain. So it was really really
a great awakening for me. The five six years that
I spent there, was wonderful to see all the different
(04:50):
aspects of trade.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And so, you know, from somebody that's not in Washington,
you know, from an outsider looking in, most people think
a lot of things don't get done, but obviously you
probably have some accomplishments while you're at the FMC. Could
you just talk about, you know, some of the things
that you know while you were there that went through
that were good for shipping and good for the country
(05:13):
as a whole.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yes, absolutely, Well, you know, ninety five percent of what
the Federal Maritime Commission does is probably cargo coming into
our ports, the containers that go on to the trucks
that go on to the rails that goes to the distribution,
whether it's you know, one of our large importers like Amazon, Walmart, Target, whoever,
to the big boxes. But another part of it is
(05:37):
commercial activities that happened on the water is also cruises.
So being the commissioner from Florida during COVID, I was
kind of put in charge of getting the cruise industry
back up and running from you know, complete the IDEs
of March that it was turned down I think it
was in twenty twenty and you know, to go ahead
and put those federal protocols into place.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So I did that.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I'm very proud of, you know, getting vaccinations for non
US members of cruise of cruise ships their crews, also
sending vaccinations to places that didn't have them at the
time Bahamas or or Saint Kitts and that were our
destinations of the cruise ship. So that was one of
my very big accomplishments that I've been recognized by that
(06:26):
by you know, my hometown of Miami.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
By c Trade Cruise, by a lot of different people.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
To follow up on that, you know, as my time
as chairman, I went to the inauguration on January twentieth,
and after President Trump was sworn as president, his first
executive order I don't remember what it was, but the
second one made me chairman and so I walked out
of the building as chairman, and I kind of felt
I had a new mandate. With that, I immediately looked
(06:57):
at some things that I had been tracking as a
commissioner over the years. The first one was is that
the the evasion of sanctions mainly by Iran and also
by Russia, you know, by flags of convenience and other
type of things, And I really wanted to hammer down
on that, and I started an investigation Flags of Ultimate
(07:18):
Convenience as we called it, to see how, you know,
some of the Iranian tankers you know, were able to
bypass sanctions and and and then go ahead and fund
that regime. So that investigation I was very very proud of.
And I would say that the other thing that I
did in my short time as as chairman was I
(07:39):
went ahead and I initiated a choke points investigation, and
that basically highlights the United States that that economic security
and trade that we have around the world is also
our national security. And we saw that during COVID where
we couldn't get you know, proper supplies in So what
we did is we highlighted I think seven of the
(08:01):
top choke points around the world, and and we're really
going to look at see how US goods moved through them,
you know, the SEUs Canal, the Patama Canal, the North Sea.
You know, we were really looked at these uh uh
the these areas, and those investigations are still ongoing, so
I look forward to seeing how they come out.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And were there any things that you you know, hope
you made a little more progress during your time there
before you left.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Well, I will say this that I did personally go
to heads of state and to ministers of other countries
and let them know if there was an issue with
the sanctions or with some of their their flagging procedures
or deflagging procedures. And I let them know personally that
this was an issue, it's going to cause an issue,
and uh, some of those states did take actions on those.
(08:48):
So I feel very very good that, uh, you know,
I was able to to to stop you know, some
of this shenanigans that were going on to go ahead
and fund our ran so to speed.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And did you ever get the fly on Air Force one?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
You know, I didn't, you know, I met I met
President Trump, you know, in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I was one of his earliest supporters.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I you know, I think I hosted the very first
fundraiser at mar Largo and also did the very first
one in Miami because he wasn't taking funds back in
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
He was going to do it out himself.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
And when he decided to, I got a phone call,
you know, to go ahead and contribute.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But he owes me that.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I'd like to say that, you know, I hope, I
hope I get a right on there soon.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
OK, that'd be great. If you can bring a guest,
I'm happy to join you. So, you know, just I
guess switching gears a little bit. You know, you discussed
earlier talked about shipbuilding, how shipbuilding has become a priority
of the Trump administration. What's the reality of the US
(09:53):
kind of reviving at shipbuilding industry.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, I'm a little bit skeptical.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I'm just and I'm not skeptical of the administration's motive
or how they're going forward about it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I'm just skeptical because it's such.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
A quagmire so to speak, that you know, if you
push on one thing to other things fall apart. So,
you know, we've we're really in a rut right now,
and we kind of got to break it down. And
it's going to take a president like President Trump who's
not afraid of a lot of things, to go ahead
and you know, kind of level the playing field and
(10:29):
make it forward. And I could give you lots of
examples on how you know, there's a kind of a brewing.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I wouldn't call it a war.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I would call it just a disparity that we have
between DO O D. You know, military ships being built
for commercial purposes and then US trying to do commercial purposes.
And what it does is there's a great disparity there.
So if you know, the Navy will build a ship,
you know, to carry car or fuel, that ship's going
(11:01):
to cost a billion dollars, right, And if we try
to do the exact same ship here in the United
States on their Jones Act and all us, you know,
we could probably do it for one hundred million dollars,
where that same ship if we buy it in in
Asia or even Europe, probably cost thirty million dollars. So
you know, there's a lot of overhead that's that's there.
(11:24):
And you know, I would say the biggest problem that
we have is, you know, if a yard is doing
a ship for a billion dollars. They're not going to
want to stop and do one for one hundred million
or thirty million. So it's really hard for us to
go ahead and try to get, you know, to be
competitive in this space when we have you know, DoD
writing these great big checks and having all this program management.
(11:48):
And the other thing is is that if you have
a ship that's going to go into commercial operations, it's
a pretty standard contract. When the ship is done, you know,
you send the surveyor in there, you send the people
in there. They go ahead and the inspect that and said, okay,
let's put it in the service, and the people who
are buying the ship, the ship's owners need that asset
producing revenue form as soon as possible. Well, just the
(12:11):
opposite is true in the United States government, where once
the ship is done and they start doing the inspection process,
rather than a couple months process, it's a couple of
years process.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So you know, that.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Ship is sitting in the dry dock, its sitting at
the port, it's you know, at the pier, it's taking
up valuable resources while this one or two years of
program management you know, kind of goes through it. So
it's highly ineffective that we have. And I and I
definitely you know, take my hat off the administration. They
just got to go through a lot of you know issues, uh,
(12:47):
you know, to try to get there right.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, and I guess I never realized that that it
takes that long for a ship to go into service
once it's been complete. So what's driving these inefficiencies.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well, the military industrial complex driving these these things. I mean,
there's so much program management, there's so much overhead. When
you talk about a d D ship, you know, I
would say it's probably fifty sixty percent overhead. The money
that we're giving that billion dollars is not going to
the yards, it's not going to the union workers or
(13:17):
the you know, the laborers or even for materials. I
would estimate that fifty percent of it is probably going
to you know, to different programs or check you know,
different type of things, consultants or whatever. Whereas in a
commercial aspect, you know, they've done this so many times.
They know what a cargo ship is supposed to look like,
they know what its the uses are, and they they're
(13:38):
pretty defined on that. So and then as we you know,
and this is where I'm kind of skeptical a little bit,
uh Lee, is that you know, we we see all
these great announcements that we're signing ship building agreements with Japan,
with Korea, with Finland, you know, and and it's kind
of insulting to think that somebody from Finland's going to
(14:01):
come over here and tell us what we're doing wrong
and how we can you know, how we can improve it.
How we can take a ship to cost a billion dollars,
you know, and then go ahead and sell it for
fifty million. So you know, there's a lot more at
it than meets us, or you know that you could
see on the service, right.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I don't think there's very little argument about, like, I
guess why we want to do this from whether it's
a you know, in the public interest or for defense
reasons of having a robust shipping building complex. But like
(14:39):
for that to happen, what has to happen. I mean,
you know, if if we want to actually do this,
is it just heavily subsidizing an industry.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I'm so glad that you asked at least, So the
first two things I don't think that we want to
do is one is have restrictive policies more so than
we have. So you know, we don't want to say
unless a ship is built in uh, Indiana you know
where I grew up.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Uh. You know, we can only hold hold things we
want to.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
We want to stop the restrictiveness and we definitely want
to provide tax incentives and other type of things for
ship building here. But we need a complete new program.
We need, as I'd like to say a lot of
time is you know, we need the Model T or
we need the Liberty Ship. We need one thing that
we can do better than anyone else, kind of as
(15:31):
Rockefeller said, John D. Rockefeller, you know, and I think
that once we look at it, what's what's a ship
that could be used for commercial aspects and also for military.
It's probably one of these you know, cargo fuel type ships.
You know that we can go ahead and do it
and hopefully we could mass produce it. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yes, we need automation in the shipyard.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
We need a lot of different things, and we also
need to train up our union workers to know how
to do those type of things.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And I think it's a win win situation.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
You know, we have now for every union worker that
we have in a shipyard, we probably have ten support
people you know in the back, you know, supporting them.
So we just need a little bit uh better distribution
of our assets, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
And for that to happen. What has to happen in
Washington is this stuff that Congress has to enact. Is
this stuff that the president could just do?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Uh, the President ken and I think he has highlighted
and prioritized ship building and why it's important and why
it's important in national security. You know, we are the
largest consumer nation in the world, you know, by without
any question, so we need the goods coming into the
United States. You know, Congress has dabbled in it a lot,
(16:45):
but you know, Congress is uh, very complex. So for
as I said before, you know, if you push on
one thing to others fall out somewhere else. So it's
very delicate in there. I think it's going to take
the initiative and we're seeing this. I think JP Morgan
Chase came out and said that they're going to invest
something like five trillion dollars in the next ten years
(17:07):
and infrastructure in these type of programs. So we need
you know, this needs to come from the private sector,
and you know, it needs to come from investment. The
same way that Tesla and their way of building vehicles
and selling vehicles revolutionized the auto industry, we kind of
need something similar in ship in ship building.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And so you know, a lot of the issues stems
from the Jones AC. So are you a fan of
the Jones AC. Are you in the camp where we
need to totally rehaul the Jones AC or do you
like it how it stands?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Well, I'm one hundred percent in favor of the Jones
AC when it's applied properly. And you know, when it's
applied properly, what we're doing is we're giving great pain
jobs to our cadets coming out of maritime academies, and
you know, we're promoting them to be on the seas.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But you know, not all the time that's the priority.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Sometimes the priority gets into other things on commercial aspects,
other Jones Actor, on restrictiveness or other type of things.
You know, I think that the Jones Act is made
to to go ahead and preserve the US Mariner and
that needs to be the priority there. And that's that's
what I'm going to say about the Jones Act.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Okay, And if there's one aspect of it, what would
be the one aspect that you'd like to see change.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well, I don't know if you know what I would
like to see changed.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It's uh, you know, it's a law that's been in
in the books for over one hundred years now. And
anything that you get something that good, it's kind of
like uh, you know, you know, changing the smile on
the Mona Lisa. Uh, you know, we need to take
very very careful brushstrokes onto onto that painting.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
All right, Well, I'm all for a different smile on
her face anyway. Actually I was. I saw that the
painting two years ago, and it was it was disappointed.
It was smaller than I thought it was going to be.
It was gonna be a much bigger painting.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And they and they pushed you aside in the louver too.
You know you got there for one second.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Cattle, Yes, very much. It felt like cattle. So you know,
you know we mentioned earlier, you know you were at
throwing run to a large lobbying firm. Kind of what
what are your priorities as a partner there? Uh when
it relates to uh, you know, your practice.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Well, I've been here for three months and I have
to say I'm probably one of the happiest people in
the entire city of Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
It's a it's a great place to work. It's a
great team that we have.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
The information that we have is is unbelievable. Uh, we're bipartisans,
so you know, every morning at nine o'clock we have
a call between the Republicans and the Democrats and we
talk about, you know, what the priorities are, what things
are happening on the hill. And it's very great to
hear those all those perspectives. And you know when I
said with a client at eleven o'clock or you know,
(20:02):
for lunch, I'm much more intelligent and I can go
ahead and talk about things from from different angles, not
only you know, from a ten thousand foot aspect.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So it's been great.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
The things that I've been doing since i've been here
is I've been doing national security around the world. Naturally,
I was a very proponent on that. I'm a former
counter intelligence agent, you know, from the Army. I'm doing
a lot of export related stuff as in, you know,
(20:35):
making sure that our ports are able to access the
vessels that are coming in to pick up our exports.
I'm working with energy with LNG with compressed gas, a
lot of different things that I think that the last administration, unfortunately,
and I wrote a lot of letters. I was very
vocal about this. You know, I believe that they kind
(20:56):
of had this war going on on fossil fuels and
and I just don't believe that we're going to be
able to jump from you know, a zero emission hydrogen.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You know, from one day to the next.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You know, there needs to be some sort of mix
as we get more efficient and effective.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
So can you talk a bit a bit about you know,
Trump administration. They've obviously have a lot more protectionist policies
than we've seen in the past, whether it's tariffs or
the US t R fees. Can you talk about how
that's impacted shipping and you know, where do you think
to see that going during the remainder of his presidency.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Well, I think so far that I'm one hundred percent
in favor of the tariffs that we've seen. And you know,
it might be a little bit hard to swallow in
the beginning, but the long term effects are going to
be good.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And I tracked this.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I tracked this during Trump one where I saw that
we had certain restrictive tariffs on certain countries. And what
I saw is that we started to trade more with
our friends, and we did a lot more business with
with you know, Malaysia or Vietnam, or Brazil or Argentina
rather than you know, the people the race to the
(22:08):
bottom to get the best, you know, to get the
cheapest product into the country. So I'm very much in
favor of the tariffs if they're applied correctly. One thing
that that that we've been tracking was and that I
worked on when I was in the administration, was the
the three oh one USTR against Chinese built ships. And
(22:31):
you know, we worked very much to you know, find
exclusions for a lot of the shippers that we had
in Florida. For example, almost all of the sized ships
that are in the smaller range from one thousand, two thousand,
three thousand TEUs twenty foot containers ships, they're all built
in China.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So these people don't have an option.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
But to use those and to go ahead and put
a million dollars or one point five you know penalty
every time that ship comes into a port to pick
up goods to bring to uh, you know, Saint Kitts
or the Bahamas, uh, you know it's going to be
it was really going to devastate US trade. So we
worked a lot on that to go ahead and carve
out those exemptions.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And obviously there's there's been a rest between the US
and you applying these fees and China also, you know,
pausing their implementation of their fees similar to ours. Where
do you how do you see this playing out?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Well? I see this playing now right now.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
The fees are suspended, and they're suspended for a very
good reason, and that is because the majority of US
agriculture moves out of the United States on Chinese bill
chips period. I mean, there's no if ends and buds
about that. And the majority of the US agriculture that's
being exported is usually from the West Coast and it's
and it's headed to Asia. So by putting the restrictiveness
(24:01):
or a million dollar fine on some of those Chinese
built ships when there are no US equivalents, you know this,
this is what we have to understand. There's there are
no US built ships that are twenty thousand TEUs are
this going in that route from Asia. So what we're
doing is put into restrictiveness and a fine on US
for something that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I knew that something was going to happen.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
I'm very very happy that it's been suspended for a year,
and I believe that it's a negotiation tactic for other
type of things. The last thing that the President wants
to do is is impact negatively. You know, US farmers,
so Ibean farmers, Hay farmers, everybody else in that group
that has these agricultural exports.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Right, and then you know, I guess you can you
talk a little bit about you know, ag exports as
it relates to the tariffs, how that has impacted you know, trade.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Well, I can say this that, you know, I believe
when a lot of the tariffs were announced and a
lot of the you know, the US t R three
oh one was announced, you know, there was panic on
the streets. There really was, because how am I going
to get my goods from here to there? This is
the carrier that I've been using, this is the ship
that I've been using, and now all of a sudden,
(25:17):
you know, it's it's gone where. You know, it's a
blank sailing. You know they're not going to have that
that thing. So I think that you know, calmer heads,
you know, the policy in general was very good, but
the nuts and bolts weren't done yet. And now we
kind of have the nuts and bolts in the place,
and we're in a lot better place now to go
ahead and negotiate further. And and what you know, what
(25:38):
China did was basically the same thing that I would
have done as a federal regulator. If somebody would have
put restrictiveness on me or on my ships or on
my cargo, I would did the same thing to them.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And we've done that many times at the FMC.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So you know what's going to happen now is, you know,
the administration with US Commerce Department and US tr are
going to and negotiate with our trading partners. And I'm
sure that the Federal Maritime Commission, where I was chairman,
is going to negotiate or going to have bilaterals and
trilatters with our European and Asia counterparts.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
You mentioned earlier you talked about emissions and how difficult
it is to get to zero. You know, you know,
maybe we don't get to zero, maybe we get to zero,
but what's the best way for the industry, the global
marine shipping industry to reduce its carbon footprint.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, the industry as a whole have been working towards
us for a long time. And as chairman, you know,
I got to meet with a lot of the heads
CEOs of shipping lines from all over the world would
come in and you know, visit Washington, and I'd ask
them what keeps you up at night? And one of
the things that they said was that they've invested billions
(26:54):
of dollars into these dual fuel machines propulsions, engines, uh,
you know, for their ships, but they were unable to
get any type of ultimate marine fuels anywhere. And what
I mean by ultimate marine fuels, I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
LNG, which is UH or you know, methane or some
sort of mix of these. So they were starting to
be able to get them in Rotterdam, but here in
the United States is very very limited. If you take
all the capacity of all the bunkering vessels that we
have for LNG or anything else in the United States,
I don't even think that we could fill up one
(27:30):
container ship, uh, you know, with their tank. So you know,
we're we're very much lacking. And hopefully you know, we
can go ahead and and move, you know, move towards
having more availability of these marine fuels.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
And so you know what else is facing the maritime
industry that's under radar from from a from a legislative standpoint.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Well, I wouldn't say so much as a leg as
a legislative standpoint, uh, I would say that probably the
Surface Reauthorization Act is coming up in twenty twenty six.
That's the mother of all infrastructure bills. It's going to
be the largest and most expensive infrastructure bill the world
(28:13):
has ever seen. The build back Better or what do
they call it, that bipartisan infrastructure build that Biden did
five years ago. It expires in twenty twenty six, and
everything is on the table, and this bill is being
written right now. It should be in markup in you know,
three four months, and hopefully, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We get to see it in June or July.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
So the idea to go ahead and work on one
of these transitional, you know, epic bills is very exciting
to me legislatives. So that legislatively, i'd say that we
also have the NDAA coming up, where it's not just defense.
They like to go ahead and put the Coastguard or
(28:54):
FMC Federal Maritime Commission, or other things they like to
bundle it in, put it into a sausage, so to speak,
you know, and hopefully you know, we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
That right now.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
But those are those are our legislative things that we're
looking at.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Right And then that NDA is a National Defense Authorization.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Act, Yes, exactly, Wow, look at that?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
What a guess? So on the surface Reauthorization Act that
you mentioned, what do you think is definitely going to
get cut out of it? And what do you think
is going to get added to it given the different
priorities of the current administration.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Well, I think, you know, it's it's very obvious that
we've seen a shift away from some of the green
energy propulsions that we had out, so you know where
I don't believe that there's any way to jump from
where we're at now to you know, hydrogen power or
other type of things. So we're going to take it
a little bit more gradual as we go through there.
(29:54):
And it also needs to make economic sense. So I
think that's one of the highlight. Uh, you know, wind
is probably uh, you know, being being pushed down a
little bit now, where other type of uh infrastructure is
definitely going to be uh be more attractive.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I think could this be good for the the US
ship building industry.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I mean this build that's coming out is going to
go ahead and provide funds for dredging, for ports, for shipyards,
for rail bridges, everything, so right now, and this is
what I'm trying to do here is try to get
a lot of these stakeholders interested and active and a
(30:40):
seat at the table for these for this largest infrastructure
build that's ever coming out here next year. So as
I continue to talk to stakeholders, we continue to add
one or two every week, you know, to kind of
build a coalition, and uh, you know, what's good for
what's good for many needs to be good for us
as well. And let me give you an example of
this that five years ago when they did this infrastructure bill,
(31:04):
we had a tax credit for for alternate fuels so
to speak, and it was granted for trucking, it was
granted for rail, it was granted. There's even one for aviation,
but there was nothing for maritime. And that was because
the maritime stakeholders just weren't at the table. So it
was something it could have been an easy fix, but
(31:24):
you know, they don't engage the way that other industries do.
If you look at Delta, American Airlines or United you
know they spent five million dollars a year on lobbying, right,
where if you get somebody in the maritime things, I
don't think you know, to get five million dollars, you're
going to add up a lot of different clients to
go ahead and to get that five million.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Dollars, right.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Absolutely, So, is there anything else on your reader in
the shipping industry or an infrastructure that you're kind of
focused on.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Well, the one thing that I brought up when I
was chairman, and I've been bringing up for a long
time was the International Maritime Organizations you know, carbon carbon
penalty that they had out and I looked at this extensively.
I'm probably one of the subject matter experts on this,
(32:14):
and I think that everybody has the right or the
same goal of reducing our carbon footprint and shipping, which
is three percent of the world's emissions. And what we
saw the United Nations through the IMO do is basically
they've provided away a taxi mechanism. And what that does
(32:37):
is if you're not at zero net carbon, if you're
not at net carbon zero, then you're going to be
You're going to be given a fine, and that fine
would be dispersed between all of your cargo. So every
single container on board is going to have to pay
up to one hundred dollars or more because you're not
at net carbon zero, something that's impossible to come to,
or even the cruises. So you know, if you're taking
(32:59):
a cruise from Miami to Bahamas and back and you're
not at net carbon zero, you know you're going to
get fifty dollars additional carbon tax onto your.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Your your your cruise bill.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
And what the United Nation wanted to do was take
all this money we're talking five to ten billion dollars
a year, send it to the United Nations and put
it into a development fund for developing nations. So when
we looked at this, we said, wait a second, we're
going to fund this the United States. The consumers here
are going to fund this forty five percent. So it
didn't make sense for you know, to go ahead and
(33:33):
add attacks onto the United States to give them money
to the United Nations to do that. With that being said,
there's so in August or not August, in September, you know,
the IMO had a vote and we decided to delay
it for a year. So we're working very strongly right
now with a lot of different coalitions to go ahead
(33:53):
and make sure that what comes out next is going
to be acceptable to the American public. You know, I'm
what they're going to be taxed on or what they're
going to be uh. You know, we don't want any
fines for for technology that doesn't exist. But we're going
to try to make this better and I think that's
going to be something that's going to be very very
important for twenty twenty six, just alongside the Surface Reauthorization Act.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And so you know, you mentioned earlier that you're in
that you're in your current role for only three months,
so you're probably learning a lot about the lobbying world.
What's been the biggest surprise to you?
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
So far?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Well, I would say that I'm very fortunate because I've
I come from the private sector, I don't come from government,
and I believe in outcomes. So I'm able to say
yes or no to to clients that I want to
to go ahead and work with. And those are ones
that want an outcome, believe it or not. A lot
(34:53):
of people here in DC, or a lot of stakeholders,
they want a lobbyist just in case, you know, just
in case someday I need them. But I'm a problem solver.
I like to look at complex problems. I like to
look at how to fix things. And these are the
things that I've really been promoting. So, you know, if
a client just wants a picture with somebody, no I'm not.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I'm not your guy.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
If you want to go ahead and figure out how
to put an LNG gas line underneath a railroad or
a highway, and you know, build an export terminal, I
am your guy.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You know you mentioned the private sector. Prior to you know,
your role in government, you were a yacht broker. It
sounds like a pretty sexy industry to be in with.
Can you provide any color about some of the transactions
that you're involved in, like the largest yacht that you've sold?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, thank you. Yes, I still am a yacht broker.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
By the way, Oh, I might be in the market,
you know, so I'm looking for something around one hundred
to three hundred feet.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yes, we got we got something for you.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
So myself and my family became a yacht We've become
a yacht dealer, not really broker, a dealer for Asthma
Yachts and Benetti yachts.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
So we've been a dealer now for twenty years.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
We service mainly our head offices out of the Republic
of Panama, great maritime location, and you know, we've been
selling for twenty years. And you know, the normal size
of our yachts are probably between five to seven million dollars.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
We usually will well will.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Sell some that are in the twenty, thirty, forty or
fifty million euros and I've done some. I've met some
very exciting people. I mean, you know, if you look
at if you google Asthma of yachts and look at
some of the pictures, you're going to see Christinado, Ronaldo
has two, You're going to see the Kardashians. You're going
to see a lot of really famous and cool people.
(36:50):
And I really enjoy the lifestyle. I really do.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So look, I look for it and it's been great.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I've got to meet people, gone to places and done everything.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
So it's been wonderful. So when you're ready to buy
your yacht, you let me.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Know, okay, And you said you're you're based in Miami,
so I'm assuming you have your own I don't know
if it's a yacht or a boat that you liked
to tool around on.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Well, I just I just ordered one. It's for delivery
next year in Italy.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And what we usually do is we use it in
the season for Italy, So I try to get it
in a May or June delivery time, uh, and then
I'll use it there until September or October, and then
ship it to for Lauderdale just in time for the
boat show, use it in the Bahamas, and then we
take it down to Panama where it's usually the you know,
(37:40):
we'll we'll.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Sell it and we'll do it again next year.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
All right, So I guess you know, could you talk
about you know, you mentioned kind of what you what
you kind of liked about the role. Is there anything
that you're just like, Oh, I didn't realize to deal
with this is a as a lobbyist and in DC.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Well, you know the majority of my clients don't require
lobbying at all.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
It's usually business development.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Okay, So I'm not I've only been on the hill
once working on a lobbying issue. The rest of it
is just putting things together or just insight kind of
like how we've been talking on Okay, what's going to
happen next on tariffs? What's going to happen next in
shipbuilding and stuff like that. And I believe I kind
of got a really good crystal ball on what's going
(38:31):
to happen. And you know, as businesses need to have
that information and information is power going forward. So I
kind of feel bad on the people who are competing
against some of the stakeholders that don't have that information,
but you know, I'm here to provide it.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
And you know, I like to ask this of all
my guests on the podcast, do you have a favorite
book about transportation or leadership that's kind of close to
your heart that you've read over the years.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Well, I would say that probably a soldier story or
by uh by uh General Omar Bradley.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
It's probably one that that really.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Lightened uh, you know, transportation and logistics more so than
ever before. You know, where he said that strategy is
for novices and logistics is for you know, is for
the experts that that do these type of things.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
And when you look at World War Two, you look.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
At any of these these operations, the United States always
had just overwhelming logistics.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
You know, we don't believe in a fair fight.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
We want ten of ours against one of theirs every
single time, and we can't do that without the logistics.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Well, Lewis, I really appreciate your time
and insights today and thanks you for coming onto the
Talking Transports podcast.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Thank you, Lee.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I'm a big fan and I look forward to hearing
this one and many more.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
All right, great, and I also want to thank you
for tuning in. If you you liked the episode, please
subscribe and leave a review. We've lined up a number
of great guests for the podcast and please check back
to hear conversations with C suite executives, shippers, regulators, and
decision makers within the freight markets. Also, we want to
learn more about freight transportation markets. Check out our work
on the Bloomberg Terminal at Bigo and on social media.
(40:19):
This is Lee Clasgow signing off and thanks for talking
to Transports with me. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Hi everyone, this is Lee Clasgow and we're Talking Transports.
Welcome to Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports podcast. I'm your host,
Lee Klaskow, Senior Freight, Transportation and Logistics analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence,
Bloomberg's and house research arm of almost five hundred analysts
and strategists around the globe. A quick public service announcement
before we dive in. Your support is instrumental to keep
(00:28):
bringing great guests and conversations to you, our listeners, and
we need your support. So please, if you enjoy the podcast,
share it, like it and leave a comment. Also, if
you've got ideas, feedback, or just want to talk transports,
I'm always happy to connect. You can find me on
the Bloomberg terminal LinkedIn, or on ex at Logistics Late.
I'm very excited to have with us today. Louis Sola
a partner at the lobbying firm Thorn Run Lewis Springs
(00:50):
nearly two decades of public and private sector leadership in transportation, trade, infrastructure,
and maritime policy. He is a former chairman and Commissioner
of the US Federal Maritime Commission. He previously served as
a Florida State Commissioner, where he led initiatives on transportation,
economic development, and infrastructure investment across the state. He also
(01:12):
is a seasoned maritime entrepreneur. He founded ever Marine, a
leading gap brokerage firm specializing in luxury vessels across the Americas,
and he's also a decorated US Army veteran. Welcome to
talking Transports, Lewis, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Lee. I'm very proud to be here and look forward
to the conversation we're going to have here on Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And also before we start off, so thank you for
your service, your time in the Army much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Twelve years. I enjoyed every minute of it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Super Before we dive in, you want to talk a
little bit about your experience in the military and how
that led you into the world of transportation. Well, if
it wasn't for the military, I definitely wouldn't be where
I am now. I mean had a young kid growing
up in Indiana, the son of a barber.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I never saw the ocean or water before.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So it was it was the government that you know,
took me and educated me from eighteen years old.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I never paid for a.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Penny of any of my education, and you know, they
found out that I was good at languages, and next thing,
you know, I was working in the US Council in Munich,
Germany when the wall came down. So I think the
US government and the military for for all that they've
done for.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Me, that's great. So from your vantage point, you know,
you're one of the large lobbying firms there in d C.
And you're working a lot in the maritime industry. You know,
what is the state of the maritime industry from your
vantage point.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Well, I don't think the state of the maritime industry
has been like this for a very long time. Probably
not you know, since World War Two when we had
the Liberty Ships program and some of the others. President
Trump has really come out strong with he wants a
strong maritime and wants a strong trading platform, so to speak,
(03:00):
not only with shipbuilding but also with ports and with
trade around the world. So what we're doing is we're
starting from over on a lot of these initiatives and
a lot of these programs, and it's very exciting to
see where they're going. And you know, to have a
front row seat like I do right now, talking to
decision makers the Administration, Congress, Senate, Department Transportation. It's very
(03:25):
exciting and I think that, you know, we're going to
be in a lot better place in a couple of
years than we are now or where we have been.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
You know, as I mentioned in the intro, you're past
commissioner of the FMC. Can you talk about your time there?
You know, what accomplishments did you kind of see while
you were there that you're kind of most proud of?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, the Federal Maritime Commissioner, you know, to give a
background for some of your listeners, you know it was formed.
The original was was the shipping the shipping board after
the opening of the Panama Canal, I think was in
nineteen seventeen, and over the years it's transformed a little bit,
most notably in nineteen sixty one, I believe that you
(04:07):
know where we became the Federal Maritime Commission. Some of
our past chairman's were Joseph Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's father.
After he was the chairman of the Securities in Exchange Commission,
he came over and became the chairman of the Federal
Maritime Commission. So what the Federal Maritime Commission is in
charge of is basically all commercial activities on the water.
(04:28):
And last year I believe that we regulated over five
trillion dollars for goods leaving and entering the United States
and everything that has to do with those goods in
connection to the supply chain. So it was really really
a great awakening for me. The five six years that
I spent there, was wonderful to see all the different
(04:50):
aspects of trade.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And so, you know, from somebody that's not in Washington,
you know, from an outsider looking in, most people think
a lot of things don't get done, but obviously you
probably have some accomplishments while you're at the FMC. Could
you just talk about, you know, some of the things
that you know while you were there that went through
that were good for shipping and good for the country
(05:13):
as a whole.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yes, absolutely, Well, you know, ninety five percent of what
the Federal Maritime Commission does is probably cargo coming into
our ports, the containers that go on to the trucks
that go on to the rails that goes to the distribution,
whether it's you know, one of our large importers like Amazon, Walmart, Target, whoever,
to the big boxes. But another part of it is
(05:37):
commercial activities that happened on the water is also cruises.
So being the commissioner from Florida during COVID, I was
kind of put in charge of getting the cruise industry
back up and running from you know, complete the IDEs
of March that it was turned down I think it
was in twenty twenty and you know, to go ahead
and put those federal protocols into place.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So I did that.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I'm very proud of, you know, getting vaccinations for non
US members of cruise of cruise ships their crews, also
sending vaccinations to places that didn't have them at the
time Bahamas or or Saint Kitts and that were our
destinations of the cruise ship. So that was one of
my very big accomplishments that I've been recognized by that
(06:26):
by you know, my hometown of Miami.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
By c Trade Cruise, by a lot of different people.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
To follow up on that, you know, as my time
as chairman, I went to the inauguration on January twentieth,
and after President Trump was sworn as president, his first
executive order I don't remember what it was, but the
second one made me chairman and so I walked out
of the building as chairman, and I kind of felt
I had a new mandate. With that, I immediately looked
(06:57):
at some things that I had been tracking as a
commissioner over the years. The first one was is that
the the evasion of sanctions mainly by Iran and also
by Russia, you know, by flags of convenience and other
type of things, And I really wanted to hammer down
on that, and I started an investigation Flags of Ultimate
(07:18):
Convenience as we called it, to see how, you know,
some of the Iranian tankers you know, were able to
bypass sanctions and and and then go ahead and fund
that regime. So that investigation I was very very proud of.
And I would say that the other thing that I
did in my short time as as chairman was I
(07:39):
went ahead and I initiated a choke points investigation, and
that basically highlights the United States that that economic security
and trade that we have around the world is also
our national security. And we saw that during COVID where
we couldn't get you know, proper supplies in So what
we did is we highlighted I think seven of the
(08:01):
top choke points around the world, and and we're really
going to look at see how US goods moved through them,
you know, the SEUs Canal, the Patama Canal, the North Sea.
You know, we were really looked at these uh uh
the these areas, and those investigations are still ongoing, so
I look forward to seeing how they come out.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
And were there any things that you you know, hope
you made a little more progress during your time there
before you left.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Well, I will say this that I did personally go
to heads of state and to ministers of other countries
and let them know if there was an issue with
the sanctions or with some of their their flagging procedures
or deflagging procedures. And I let them know personally that
this was an issue, it's going to cause an issue,
and uh, some of those states did take actions on those.
(08:48):
So I feel very very good that, uh, you know,
I was able to to to stop you know, some
of this shenanigans that were going on to go ahead
and fund our ran so to speed.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And did you ever get the fly on Air Force one?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
You know, I didn't, you know, I met I met
President Trump, you know, in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I was one of his earliest supporters.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I you know, I think I hosted the very first
fundraiser at mar Largo and also did the very first
one in Miami because he wasn't taking funds back in
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
He was going to do it out himself.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
And when he decided to, I got a phone call,
you know, to go ahead and contribute.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But he owes me that.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I'd like to say that, you know, I hope, I
hope I get a right on there soon.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
OK, that'd be great. If you can bring a guest,
I'm happy to join you. So, you know, just I
guess switching gears a little bit. You know, you discussed
earlier talked about shipbuilding, how shipbuilding has become a priority
of the Trump administration. What's the reality of the US
(09:53):
kind of reviving at shipbuilding industry.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, I'm a little bit skeptical.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I'm just and I'm not skeptical of the administration's motive
or how they're going forward about it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I'm just skeptical because it's such.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
A quagmire so to speak, that you know, if you
push on one thing to other things fall apart. So,
you know, we've we're really in a rut right now,
and we kind of got to break it down. And
it's going to take a president like President Trump who's
not afraid of a lot of things, to go ahead
and you know, kind of level the playing field and
(10:29):
make it forward. And I could give you lots of
examples on how you know, there's a kind of a brewing.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I wouldn't call it a war.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I would call it just a disparity that we have
between DO O D. You know, military ships being built
for commercial purposes and then US trying to do commercial purposes.
And what it does is there's a great disparity there.
So if you know, the Navy will build a ship,
you know, to carry car or fuel, that ship's going
(11:01):
to cost a billion dollars, right, And if we try
to do the exact same ship here in the United
States on their Jones Act and all us, you know,
we could probably do it for one hundred million dollars,
where that same ship if we buy it in in
Asia or even Europe, probably cost thirty million dollars. So
you know, there's a lot of overhead that's that's there.
(11:24):
And you know, I would say the biggest problem that
we have is, you know, if a yard is doing
a ship for a billion dollars. They're not going to
want to stop and do one for one hundred million
or thirty million. So it's really hard for us to
go ahead and try to get, you know, to be
competitive in this space when we have you know, DoD
writing these great big checks and having all this program management.
(11:48):
And the other thing is is that if you have
a ship that's going to go into commercial operations, it's
a pretty standard contract. When the ship is done, you know,
you send the surveyor in there, you send the people
in there. They go ahead and the inspect that and said, okay,
let's put it in the service, and the people who
are buying the ship, the ship's owners need that asset
producing revenue form as soon as possible. Well, just the
(12:11):
opposite is true in the United States government, where once
the ship is done and they start doing the inspection process,
rather than a couple months process, it's a couple of
years process.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So you know, that.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Ship is sitting in the dry dock, its sitting at
the port, it's you know, at the pier, it's taking
up valuable resources while this one or two years of
program management you know, kind of goes through it. So
it's highly ineffective that we have. And I and I
definitely you know, take my hat off the administration. They
just got to go through a lot of you know issues, uh,
(12:47):
you know, to try to get there right.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, and I guess I never realized that that it
takes that long for a ship to go into service
once it's been complete. So what's driving these inefficiencies.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well, the military industrial complex driving these these things. I mean,
there's so much program management, there's so much overhead. When
you talk about a d D ship, you know, I
would say it's probably fifty sixty percent overhead. The money
that we're giving that billion dollars is not going to
the yards, it's not going to the union workers or
(13:17):
the you know, the laborers or even for materials. I
would estimate that fifty percent of it is probably going
to you know, to different programs or check you know,
different type of things, consultants or whatever. Whereas in a
commercial aspect, you know, they've done this so many times.
They know what a cargo ship is supposed to look like,
they know what its the uses are, and they they're
(13:38):
pretty defined on that. So and then as we you know,
and this is where I'm kind of skeptical a little bit,
uh Lee, is that you know, we we see all
these great announcements that we're signing ship building agreements with Japan,
with Korea, with Finland, you know, and and it's kind
of insulting to think that somebody from Finland's going to
(14:01):
come over here and tell us what we're doing wrong
and how we can you know, how we can improve it.
How we can take a ship to cost a billion dollars,
you know, and then go ahead and sell it for
fifty million. So you know, there's a lot more at
it than meets us, or you know that you could
see on the service, right.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I don't think there's very little argument about, like, I
guess why we want to do this from whether it's
a you know, in the public interest or for defense
reasons of having a robust shipping building complex. But like
(14:39):
for that to happen, what has to happen. I mean,
you know, if if we want to actually do this,
is it just heavily subsidizing an industry.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I'm so glad that you asked at least, So the
first two things I don't think that we want to
do is one is have restrictive policies more so than
we have. So you know, we don't want to say
unless a ship is built in uh, Indiana you know
where I grew up.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Uh. You know, we can only hold hold things we
want to.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
We want to stop the restrictiveness and we definitely want
to provide tax incentives and other type of things for
ship building here. But we need a complete new program.
We need, as I'd like to say a lot of
time is you know, we need the Model T or
we need the Liberty Ship. We need one thing that
we can do better than anyone else, kind of as
(15:31):
Rockefeller said, John D. Rockefeller, you know, and I think
that once we look at it, what's what's a ship
that could be used for commercial aspects and also for military.
It's probably one of these you know, cargo fuel type ships.
You know that we can go ahead and do it
and hopefully we could mass produce it. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yes, we need automation in the shipyard.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
We need a lot of different things, and we also
need to train up our union workers to know how
to do those type of things.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
And I think it's a win win situation.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
You know, we have now for every union worker that
we have in a shipyard, we probably have ten support
people you know in the back, you know, supporting them.
So we just need a little bit uh better distribution
of our assets, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
And for that to happen. What has to happen in
Washington is this stuff that Congress has to enact. Is
this stuff that the president could just do?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Uh, the President ken and I think he has highlighted
and prioritized ship building and why it's important and why
it's important in national security. You know, we are the
largest consumer nation in the world, you know, by without
any question, so we need the goods coming into the
United States. You know, Congress has dabbled in it a lot,
(16:45):
but you know, Congress is uh, very complex. So for
as I said before, you know, if you push on
one thing to others fall out somewhere else. So it's
very delicate in there. I think it's going to take
the initiative and we're seeing this. I think JP Morgan
Chase came out and said that they're going to invest
something like five trillion dollars in the next ten years
(17:07):
and infrastructure in these type of programs. So we need
you know, this needs to come from the private sector,
and you know, it needs to come from investment. The
same way that Tesla and their way of building vehicles
and selling vehicles revolutionized the auto industry, we kind of
need something similar in ship in ship building.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And so you know, a lot of the issues stems
from the Jones AC. So are you a fan of
the Jones AC. Are you in the camp where we
need to totally rehaul the Jones AC or do you
like it how it stands?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Well, I'm one hundred percent in favor of the Jones
AC when it's applied properly. And you know, when it's
applied properly, what we're doing is we're giving great pain
jobs to our cadets coming out of maritime academies, and
you know, we're promoting them to be on the seas.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But you know, not all the time that's the priority.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Sometimes the priority gets into other things on commercial aspects,
other Jones Actor, on restrictiveness or other type of things.
You know, I think that the Jones Act is made
to to go ahead and preserve the US Mariner and
that needs to be the priority there. And that's that's
what I'm going to say about the Jones Act.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Okay, And if there's one aspect of it, what would
be the one aspect that you'd like to see change.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well, I don't know if you know what I would
like to see changed.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It's uh, you know, it's a law that's been in
in the books for over one hundred years now. And
anything that you get something that good, it's kind of
like uh, you know, you know, changing the smile on
the Mona Lisa. Uh, you know, we need to take
very very careful brushstrokes onto onto that painting.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
All right, Well, I'm all for a different smile on
her face anyway. Actually I was. I saw that the
painting two years ago, and it was it was disappointed.
It was smaller than I thought it was going to be.
It was gonna be a much bigger painting.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And they and they pushed you aside in the louver too.
You know you got there for one second.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Cattle, Yes, very much. It felt like cattle. So you know,
you know we mentioned earlier, you know you were at
throwing run to a large lobbying firm. Kind of what
what are your priorities as a partner there? Uh when
it relates to uh, you know, your practice.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Well, I've been here for three months and I have
to say I'm probably one of the happiest people in
the entire city of Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
It's a it's a great place to work. It's a
great team that we have.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
The information that we have is is unbelievable. Uh, we're bipartisans,
so you know, every morning at nine o'clock we have
a call between the Republicans and the Democrats and we
talk about, you know, what the priorities are, what things
are happening on the hill. And it's very great to
hear those all those perspectives. And you know when I
said with a client at eleven o'clock or you know,
(20:02):
for lunch, I'm much more intelligent and I can go
ahead and talk about things from from different angles, not
only you know, from a ten thousand foot aspect.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So it's been great.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
The things that I've been doing since i've been here
is I've been doing national security around the world. Naturally,
I was a very proponent on that. I'm a former
counter intelligence agent, you know, from the Army. I'm doing
a lot of export related stuff as in, you know,
(20:35):
making sure that our ports are able to access the
vessels that are coming in to pick up our exports.
I'm working with energy with LNG with compressed gas, a
lot of different things that I think that the last administration, unfortunately,
and I wrote a lot of letters. I was very
vocal about this. You know, I believe that they kind
(20:56):
of had this war going on on fossil fuels and
and I just don't believe that we're going to be
able to jump from you know, a zero emission hydrogen.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You know, from one day to the next.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You know, there needs to be some sort of mix
as we get more efficient and effective.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
So can you talk a bit a bit about you know,
Trump administration. They've obviously have a lot more protectionist policies
than we've seen in the past, whether it's tariffs or
the US t R fees. Can you talk about how
that's impacted shipping and you know, where do you think
to see that going during the remainder of his presidency.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Well, I think so far that I'm one hundred percent
in favor of the tariffs that we've seen. And you know,
it might be a little bit hard to swallow in
the beginning, but the long term effects are going to
be good.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And I tracked this.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I tracked this during Trump one where I saw that
we had certain restrictive tariffs on certain countries. And what
I saw is that we started to trade more with
our friends, and we did a lot more business with
with you know, Malaysia or Vietnam, or Brazil or Argentina
rather than you know, the people the race to the
(22:08):
bottom to get the best, you know, to get the
cheapest product into the country. So I'm very much in
favor of the tariffs if they're applied correctly. One thing
that that that we've been tracking was and that I
worked on when I was in the administration, was the
the three oh one USTR against Chinese built ships. And
(22:31):
you know, we worked very much to you know, find
exclusions for a lot of the shippers that we had
in Florida. For example, almost all of the sized ships
that are in the smaller range from one thousand, two thousand,
three thousand TEUs twenty foot containers ships, they're all built
in China.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So these people don't have an option.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
But to use those and to go ahead and put
a million dollars or one point five you know penalty
every time that ship comes into a port to pick
up goods to bring to uh, you know, Saint Kitts
or the Bahamas, uh, you know it's going to be
it was really going to devastate US trade. So we
worked a lot on that to go ahead and carve
out those exemptions.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And obviously there's there's been a rest between the US
and you applying these fees and China also, you know,
pausing their implementation of their fees similar to ours. Where
do you how do you see this playing out?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Well? I see this playing now right now.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
The fees are suspended, and they're suspended for a very
good reason, and that is because the majority of US
agriculture moves out of the United States on Chinese bill
chips period. I mean, there's no if ends and buds
about that. And the majority of the US agriculture that's
being exported is usually from the West Coast and it's
and it's headed to Asia. So by putting the restrictiveness
(24:01):
or a million dollar fine on some of those Chinese
built ships when there are no US equivalents, you know this,
this is what we have to understand. There's there are
no US built ships that are twenty thousand TEUs are
this going in that route from Asia. So what we're
doing is put into restrictiveness and a fine on US
for something that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I knew that something was going to happen.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
I'm very very happy that it's been suspended for a year,
and I believe that it's a negotiation tactic for other
type of things. The last thing that the President wants
to do is is impact negatively. You know, US farmers,
so Ibean farmers, Hay farmers, everybody else in that group
that has these agricultural exports.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Right, and then you know, I guess you can you
talk a little bit about you know, ag exports as
it relates to the tariffs, how that has impacted you know, trade.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Well, I can say this that, you know, I believe
when a lot of the tariffs were announced and a
lot of the you know, the US t R three
oh one was announced, you know, there was panic on
the streets. There really was, because how am I going
to get my goods from here to there? This is
the carrier that I've been using, this is the ship
that I've been using, and now all of a sudden,
(25:17):
you know, it's it's gone where. You know, it's a
blank sailing. You know they're not going to have that
that thing. So I think that you know, calmer heads,
you know, the policy in general was very good, but
the nuts and bolts weren't done yet. And now we
kind of have the nuts and bolts in the place,
and we're in a lot better place now to go
ahead and negotiate further. And and what you know, what
(25:38):
China did was basically the same thing that I would
have done as a federal regulator. If somebody would have
put restrictiveness on me or on my ships or on
my cargo, I would did the same thing to them.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And we've done that many times at the FMC.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So you know what's going to happen now is, you know,
the administration with US Commerce Department and US tr are
going to and negotiate with our trading partners. And I'm
sure that the Federal Maritime Commission, where I was chairman,
is going to negotiate or going to have bilaterals and
trilatters with our European and Asia counterparts.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
You mentioned earlier you talked about emissions and how difficult
it is to get to zero. You know, you know,
maybe we don't get to zero, maybe we get to zero,
but what's the best way for the industry, the global
marine shipping industry to reduce its carbon footprint.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, the industry as a whole have been working towards
us for a long time. And as chairman, you know,
I got to meet with a lot of the heads
CEOs of shipping lines from all over the world would
come in and you know, visit Washington, and I'd ask
them what keeps you up at night? And one of
the things that they said was that they've invested billions
(26:54):
of dollars into these dual fuel machines propulsions, engines, uh,
you know, for their ships, but they were unable to
get any type of ultimate marine fuels anywhere. And what
I mean by ultimate marine fuels, I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
LNG, which is UH or you know, methane or some
sort of mix of these. So they were starting to
be able to get them in Rotterdam, but here in
the United States is very very limited. If you take
all the capacity of all the bunkering vessels that we
have for LNG or anything else in the United States,
I don't even think that we could fill up one
(27:30):
container ship, uh, you know, with their tank. So you know,
we're we're very much lacking. And hopefully you know, we
can go ahead and and move, you know, move towards
having more availability of these marine fuels.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
And so you know what else is facing the maritime
industry that's under radar from from a from a legislative standpoint.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Well, I wouldn't say so much as a leg as
a legislative standpoint, uh, I would say that probably the
Surface Reauthorization Act is coming up in twenty twenty six.
That's the mother of all infrastructure bills. It's going to
be the largest and most expensive infrastructure bill the world
(28:13):
has ever seen. The build back Better or what do
they call it, that bipartisan infrastructure build that Biden did
five years ago. It expires in twenty twenty six, and
everything is on the table, and this bill is being
written right now. It should be in markup in you know,
three four months, and hopefully, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We get to see it in June or July.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
So the idea to go ahead and work on one
of these transitional, you know, epic bills is very exciting
to me legislatives. So that legislatively, i'd say that we
also have the NDAA coming up, where it's not just defense.
They like to go ahead and put the Coastguard or
(28:54):
FMC Federal Maritime Commission, or other things they like to
bundle it in, put it into a sausage, so to speak,
you know, and hopefully you know, we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
That right now.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
But those are those are our legislative things that we're
looking at.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Right And then that NDA is a National Defense Authorization.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Act, Yes, exactly, Wow, look at that?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
What a guess? So on the surface Reauthorization Act that
you mentioned, what do you think is definitely going to
get cut out of it? And what do you think
is going to get added to it given the different
priorities of the current administration.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Well, I think, you know, it's it's very obvious that
we've seen a shift away from some of the green
energy propulsions that we had out, so you know where
I don't believe that there's any way to jump from
where we're at now to you know, hydrogen power or
other type of things. So we're going to take it
a little bit more gradual as we go through there.
(29:54):
And it also needs to make economic sense. So I
think that's one of the highlight. Uh, you know, wind
is probably uh, you know, being being pushed down a
little bit now, where other type of uh infrastructure is
definitely going to be uh be more attractive.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I think could this be good for the the US
ship building industry.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I mean this build that's coming out is going to
go ahead and provide funds for dredging, for ports, for shipyards,
for rail bridges, everything, so right now, and this is
what I'm trying to do here is try to get
a lot of these stakeholders interested and active and a
(30:40):
seat at the table for these for this largest infrastructure
build that's ever coming out here next year. So as
I continue to talk to stakeholders, we continue to add
one or two every week, you know, to kind of
build a coalition, and uh, you know, what's good for
what's good for many needs to be good for us
as well. And let me give you an example of
this that five years ago when they did this infrastructure bill,
(31:04):
we had a tax credit for for alternate fuels so
to speak, and it was granted for trucking, it was
granted for rail, it was granted. There's even one for aviation,
but there was nothing for maritime. And that was because
the maritime stakeholders just weren't at the table. So it
was something it could have been an easy fix, but
(31:24):
you know, they don't engage the way that other industries do.
If you look at Delta, American Airlines or United you
know they spent five million dollars a year on lobbying, right,
where if you get somebody in the maritime things, I
don't think you know, to get five million dollars, you're
going to add up a lot of different clients to
go ahead and to get that five million.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Dollars, right.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Absolutely, So, is there anything else on your reader in
the shipping industry or an infrastructure that you're kind of
focused on.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Well, the one thing that I brought up when I
was chairman, and I've been bringing up for a long
time was the International Maritime Organizations you know, carbon carbon
penalty that they had out and I looked at this extensively.
I'm probably one of the subject matter experts on this,
(32:14):
and I think that everybody has the right or the
same goal of reducing our carbon footprint and shipping, which
is three percent of the world's emissions. And what we
saw the United Nations through the IMO do is basically
they've provided away a taxi mechanism. And what that does
(32:37):
is if you're not at zero net carbon, if you're
not at net carbon zero, then you're going to be
You're going to be given a fine, and that fine
would be dispersed between all of your cargo. So every
single container on board is going to have to pay
up to one hundred dollars or more because you're not
at net carbon zero, something that's impossible to come to,
or even the cruises. So you know, if you're taking
(32:59):
a cruise from Miami to Bahamas and back and you're
not at net carbon zero, you know you're going to
get fifty dollars additional carbon tax onto your.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Your your your cruise bill.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
And what the United Nation wanted to do was take
all this money we're talking five to ten billion dollars
a year, send it to the United Nations and put
it into a development fund for developing nations. So when
we looked at this, we said, wait a second, we're
going to fund this the United States. The consumers here
are going to fund this forty five percent. So it
didn't make sense for you know, to go ahead and
(33:33):
add attacks onto the United States to give them money
to the United Nations to do that. With that being said,
there's so in August or not August, in September, you know,
the IMO had a vote and we decided to delay
it for a year. So we're working very strongly right
now with a lot of different coalitions to go ahead
(33:53):
and make sure that what comes out next is going
to be acceptable to the American public. You know, I'm
what they're going to be taxed on or what they're
going to be uh. You know, we don't want any
fines for for technology that doesn't exist. But we're going
to try to make this better and I think that's
going to be something that's going to be very very
important for twenty twenty six, just alongside the Surface Reauthorization Act.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
And so you know, you mentioned earlier that you're in
that you're in your current role for only three months,
so you're probably learning a lot about the lobbying world.
What's been the biggest surprise to you?
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
So far?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Well, I would say that I'm very fortunate because I've
I come from the private sector, I don't come from government,
and I believe in outcomes. So I'm able to say
yes or no to to clients that I want to
to go ahead and work with. And those are ones
that want an outcome, believe it or not. A lot
(34:53):
of people here in DC, or a lot of stakeholders,
they want a lobbyist just in case, you know, just
in case someday I need them. But I'm a problem solver.
I like to look at complex problems. I like to
look at how to fix things. And these are the
things that I've really been promoting. So, you know, if
a client just wants a picture with somebody, no I'm not.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I'm not your guy.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
If you want to go ahead and figure out how
to put an LNG gas line underneath a railroad or
a highway, and you know, build an export terminal, I
am your guy.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You know you mentioned the private sector. Prior to you know,
your role in government, you were a yacht broker. It
sounds like a pretty sexy industry to be in with.
Can you provide any color about some of the transactions
that you're involved in, like the largest yacht that you've sold?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, thank you. Yes, I still am a yacht broker.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
By the way, Oh, I might be in the market,
you know, so I'm looking for something around one hundred
to three hundred feet.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yes, we got we got something for you.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
So myself and my family became a yacht We've become
a yacht dealer, not really broker, a dealer for Asthma
Yachts and Benetti yachts.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
So we've been a dealer now for twenty years.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
We service mainly our head offices out of the Republic
of Panama, great maritime location, and you know, we've been
selling for twenty years. And you know, the normal size
of our yachts are probably between five to seven million dollars.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
We usually will well will.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Sell some that are in the twenty, thirty, forty or
fifty million euros and I've done some. I've met some
very exciting people. I mean, you know, if you look
at if you google Asthma of yachts and look at
some of the pictures, you're going to see Christinado, Ronaldo
has two, You're going to see the Kardashians. You're going
to see a lot of really famous and cool people.
(36:50):
And I really enjoy the lifestyle. I really do.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So look, I look for it and it's been great.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I've got to meet people, gone to places and done everything.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
So it's been wonderful. So when you're ready to buy
your yacht, you let me.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Know, okay, And you said you're you're based in Miami,
so I'm assuming you have your own I don't know
if it's a yacht or a boat that you liked
to tool around on.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Well, I just I just ordered one. It's for delivery
next year in Italy.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And what we usually do is we use it in
the season for Italy, So I try to get it
in a May or June delivery time, uh, and then
I'll use it there until September or October, and then
ship it to for Lauderdale just in time for the
boat show, use it in the Bahamas, and then we
take it down to Panama where it's usually the you know,
(37:40):
we'll we'll.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Sell it and we'll do it again next year.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
All right, So I guess you know, could you talk
about you know, you mentioned kind of what you what
you kind of liked about the role. Is there anything
that you're just like, Oh, I didn't realize to deal
with this is a as a lobbyist and in DC.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Well, you know the majority of my clients don't require
lobbying at all.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
It's usually business development.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Okay, So I'm not I've only been on the hill
once working on a lobbying issue. The rest of it
is just putting things together or just insight kind of
like how we've been talking on Okay, what's going to
happen next on tariffs? What's going to happen next in
shipbuilding and stuff like that. And I believe I kind
of got a really good crystal ball on what's going
(38:31):
to happen. And you know, as businesses need to have
that information and information is power going forward. So I
kind of feel bad on the people who are competing
against some of the stakeholders that don't have that information,
but you know, I'm here to provide it.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
And you know, I like to ask this of all
my guests on the podcast, do you have a favorite
book about transportation or leadership that's kind of close to
your heart that you've read over the years.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Well, I would say that probably a soldier story or
by uh by uh General Omar Bradley.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
It's probably one that that really.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Lightened uh, you know, transportation and logistics more so than
ever before. You know, where he said that strategy is
for novices and logistics is for you know, is for
the experts that that do these type of things.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
And when you look at World War Two, you look.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
At any of these these operations, the United States always
had just overwhelming logistics.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
You know, we don't believe in a fair fight.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
We want ten of ours against one of theirs every
single time, and we can't do that without the logistics.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Well, Lewis, I really appreciate your time
and insights today and thanks you for coming onto the
Talking Transports podcast.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Thank you, Lee.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I'm a big fan and I look forward to hearing
this one and many more.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
All right, great, and I also want to thank you
for tuning in. If you you liked the episode, please
subscribe and leave a review. We've lined up a number
of great guests for the podcast and please check back
to hear conversations with C suite executives, shippers, regulators, and
decision makers within the freight markets. Also, we want to
learn more about freight transportation markets. Check out our work
on the Bloomberg Terminal at Bigo and on social media.
(40:19):
This is Lee Clasgow signing off and thanks for talking
to Transports with me. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Host
Lee Klaskow
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.