The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, commonly known as the Jones Act, requires all goods shipped between US ports to be transported on vessels that are built, owned, and flagged in the United States, as well as crewed by US citizens. While intended to protect the domestic shipping industry, the law created massive economic distortions for non-contiguous US states and territories like Hawaii. One of the strangest casualties of this legislation was Hawaii's cattle industry.
Ranchers on the Big Island traditionally sent young calves to mainland pastures for fattening before market. However, because there were no qualified US-flagged livestock carrier ships operating between Hawaii and the US West Coast, ranchers could not legally ship their cattle directly to ports in California, Oregon, or Washington on lower-cost foreign vessels. Faced with exorbitant domestic shipping rates or impossible logistics, Hawaiian ranchers discovered a bizarre legal loophole: international shipping rules were not subject to the Jones Act.
Ranchers loaded thousands of cattle onto specially modified Boeing 747 cargo planes or foreign ocean vessels and transported them to Vancouver, Canada. Once the cattle landed on Canadian soil, they crossed the border into the United States via cattle trucks, successfully bypassing Jones Act shipping restrictions.