![COLUMN | Will "America first" see PSV operator Tidewater booted out of Europe? [Offshore Accounts]](http://media.assettype.com/bairdmaritime%2F2026-01-25%2F3ztmw6pc%2FUntitled.jpeg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
Here's a fun idea: when you next see the CEO or senior vice president of an American supply vessel operator, why not ask them what gives them the right to trade in your waters when their country bans your ships from its own waters?
If only there was a public occasion to call out American hypocrisy on the Jones Act, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which mandates that goods transported between American ports must be carried on ships that are American-built, -managed, -owned, and -crewed, including offshore support vessels.
This is a blanket ban on not just foreign flag vessels working in America, but on foreign CEOs running American shipping companies, foreign shareholders controlling American vessel operators, and foreign crew working in the US Gulf of Mexico. It allows American companies to buy foreign assets and work overseas, whilst protected in their own home market.
Perhaps it is time to consider a reciprocal ban on American involvement in the European cabotage trade, especially given the recent European “national security” concerns arising from America's policy towards Greenland. Other countries – including Australia - might want to consider following suit, if American foreign policy continues to operate on a completely double standard.
In its November investor presentation, Tidewater boasted that it operated fifty offshore support vessels in Europe, a quarter of its fleet, and that it is the largest operator of platform supply vessels (PSVs) in the North Sea, especially in British and Norwegian waters.
Seacor also has PSVs working out of Aberdeen. No European supply vessels are permitted to operate in American waters, however.
Tidewater and Seacor can compete freely with Solstad, Havila, Rem, Sea1, and Siem/Aurora in Norway, but those companies cannot compete with Tidewater and Seacor in America. Tidewater can and does send ships to work in the waters of Britain and France, but Bourbon and Fletcher Shipping cannot work in the US waters of the Gulf of Mexico, except with specialist tonnage where no Jones Act tonnage is available, on very limited occasions.
Perhaps it is time for the Europe and other former allies to treat America in the same way that it treats them in its cabotage arrangements. What is sauce for the goose should perhaps be sauce for the gander, as the old adage goes.
Americans have long used the double standard to buy foreign vessel fleets working in European waters, as far back as the 1990s when Tidewater bought O.I.L of the UK, Seabulk acquired Switzerland's Care Offshore, Trico Marine acquired Saevik Supply of Norway, and Seacor bought Feronia International Shipping, Smit Lloyd of the Netherlands and Sterling Shipping in the UK, along with Boston Putford and its fleet of safety standby vessels in 2000.
More recently, Tidewater acquired Norway's Troms Offshore Supply in June 2013 and the PSV fleet of Solstad of Norway in 2023, as well as anchor handlers from ultimately British-owned Swire Pacific Offshore in 2022, trading in the UK sector of the North Sea.
However, it would be illegal for the Swire family or Lars Peder Solstad to acquire Tidewater.
It was one thing for Europeans to accept American protectionism and double standards when America was a close ally.
It is entirely another when the US appears to be closer to Russia than to other NATO members, and is threatening to seize territory from European states, disparaging their leadership and ignoring their democratic agency.
And this is all being done whilst inviting President Vladimir Putin to the Gaza “board of peace” even as Russian forces fire hundreds of drones and missiles indiscriminately into Ukrainian cities and ports, killing dozens of civilians in the last week alone, and the Russian leader is subject to charges of war crimes at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Last week, US President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to seize the Danish territory of Greenland by force, against the clear will of its people, provoking the biggest crisis in the western alliance since the foundation of NATO in 1949.
He then threatened extra tariffs of up to 25 per cent on countries that sought to oppose the annexation of the island, including Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway.
"I've always said, will they be there if we ever needed them?" Mr Trump commented regarding NATO. "That's really the ultimate test. I'm not sure of that. We've never needed them. They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan and this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, off the front lines."
The President then eventually backed down in a rambling and incoherent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, where he repeatedly confused Greenland with Iceland, maintained he wished to reach “a deal” to acquire the island, but thankfully ruled out the use of force.
On Sunday, he sent a grovelling social media message praising the bravery of the 457 British troops who died serving in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021.
However, from the threats of an illegal annexation of the territory of a NATO member, the disrespect to hundreds of allied war dead who answered America's call when it invoked NATO Article Five in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and the high tariffs already imposed on allies (but not on North Korea or Russia), it is clear that "America first" means a break with the norms that have governed relationships between America and its allies since the Second World War.
American companies are too fearful to make any public statements in support of self-determination for Greenland or against the threats against Canada. Unfortunately, maritime policy, free trade, and investment are now pawns in great power politics, subjects to the whims and delusions of the American President and his cabinet of nationalists, large donors, and former Fox News hosts.
In light of the transformation of America under the Make America Great Again movement, why doesn't Europe impose its own version of the Jones Act and kick out all the American-owned supply vessels from its waters, in the same way that America bans foreign-owned vessels from trading in its waters?
America has already imposed major steel, aluminium, and vehicle tariffs against the EU, Canada, South Korea and Japan. President Trump has threatened to dissolve NATO and repeatedly stated that he would like to make Canada the fifty-first state of the USA.
For the last year, American allies have tried to act nice by not fully responding. Perhaps now it is time to consider reciprocity with American actions, so that American companies and investors experience the same restrictions that other nations have long experienced in the USA itself.
This would be in keeping with the new reality that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney highlighted in a speech at Davos last week. If you have not read the transcript or seen the speech, it is worthwhile to do so.
Without mentioning President Trump or even the United States, Mr Carney stressed that middle powers like Canada, Australia, South Korea and the European states must act together to wield legitimacy, integrity, and rules effectively. He stressed that collaboration reduces costs, limits fragmentation, and enhances the influence of medium-sized nations in global affairs.
I would suggest that a European cabotage area would include the EU, Norway, Iceland, the UK, Switzerland, and even aspirant EU members like Turkey, Montenegro and Albania. Reciprocal arrangements could be made with Australia (let's call it the Go Offshore exemption), New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
Tidewater and Seacor would rightly say that they manage their vessels from local offices in Europe and Australia, they employ many European (and Australian) seafarers on their vessels working in those countries, and that most of their vessels in Europe are flagged to European registries.
So what? Any European company attempting to follow these local content measures in the US would still be banned from American waters under the Jones Act.
Obviously, a European Jones Act would have to be phased in with plenty of warning over, say, a year. In this transition period, the American owners could arrange to mobilise their vessels out of European waters, or sell them in an orderly manner to European owners on a willing buyer/willing seller basis.
And of course, just as America rigorously scrutinises the ultimate beneficial ownership of shipping companies there, the Europeans would need to be clear that a genuine divestment has occurred, rather than through the use of nominee shareholders or shell companies.
This already happens in aviation, where EU airlines have to be majority owned by EU nationals, or they lose their traffic rights. These restrictions appeared to be unknown to the world's richest man, Elon Musk, when he threatened to buy Ryanair last week after a spat with the airline's CEO on fuel drag and inflight wifi.
Although, of course, if there was a military strike on European territories by America forces, which only a year ago would have seemed preposterous, then expropriating the fifty Tidewater-owned vessels in Europe would be both legal and possible. One has to hope it never comes to that, but hostile and foolish actions should have consequences.
It is not as if a European Jones Act would be doing anything that other major powers and others don't do.
China and Russia have strict cabotage rules. You can count the number of foreign-flagged PSVs working in China in the last decade on a single hand. Even before the bloody invasion of Ukraine, Russia had effectively squeezed out most foreign shipowners from its offshore sector.
Canada, ironically, also already has a strong cabotage law and strict local content and local crewing requirements, as do Indonesia and Brazil. India, Nigeria, and Malaysia also have cabotage laws, but with frequent exemptions for foreign flag vessels when no local tonnage is available.
Having a quarter of Tidewater's fleet in European waters provides European governments, especially Norway, with leverage against American aggression.
Lana del Rey sings, “They mistook my kindness for weakness,” in her ballad Mariners Apartment Complex. I fear that eight decades of dependency on America have left American business leaders complacent at what the costs of America first and illegal land grabs by their government might be on their foreign operations. European openness is perceived as weakness.
Even the threat of a European Jones Act would focus minds in Houston nicely, especially if someone was to raise this with Tidewater in public.
Background reading
To understand the MAGA mindset in marine, click here.
