Yeah, the optics of this are terrible -- and frankly I think this is an egregious mistake regardless of whether more ships would ultimately prove to help. Puerto Rico is asking for a specific kind of help that would maybe work and that would have no long-term harms, and the Trump administration is saying that it's not even worth trying.

But why the hell not? A temporary waiver of this act is highly unlikely to impact the shipbuilding industry long term -- no one builds or does not build a ship based on this type of temporary waiver. All that a waiver here might do is take a little short term money out of the pockets of specific protected companies -- who, by virtue of this protectionism, will be able to charge top dollar.

It therefore certainly looks like a corporate giveaway at the expense of the Puerto Rican people in the wake of a natural disaster. And the excuse given -- that it's ok, because a waiver here probably wouldn't work anyways -- rings hollow to me. If this was Florida, Texas, or Louisiana, I'd be surprised if we didn't at least try adding more ships here. So I have a hard time accepting that it's not worth trying here.