Truth:
Former Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi recently highlighted Puerto Rico in her latest show Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi. We share her passion for fresh food! We also want to make sure she has all of the facts about the Puerto Rican men and women who deliver for the Island every day, and hope she will visit when she returns. But with influence comes the responsibility to be factual. Some examples:
- She claims that consumers in Puerto Rico struggle because of the costs of shipping on American-built, -owned, and -crewed ships. This simply is not true. Consumer Prices in Puerto Rico are lower than in the United States on average. See this study concluding that the Jones Act has no impact on either retail prices or the cost of living in Puerto Rico.
- The Jones Act does not require that most goods traveling to Puerto Rico “must” make a pit stop in Florida in order to be delivered. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all vessels calling into Puerto Rico are foreign-flagged ships. The Jones Act supports the entire country, not just Puerto Rico and Florida.
- Her show implies that American carriers hurt domestic production on the Island. This simply is not true. The Jones Act not only supports thousands of family-waged jobs in Puerto Rico but also provides dependable cargo service to the mainland from the Commonwealth. Shippers report that foreign carriers underperform American carriers’ reliable deliveries.
- On-time arrival for American carriers servicing Puerto Rico is approximately 98% (measured with a delay of 2 hrs or less), while international carriers only make it to ports on time 70% of the time, with delays as long as 8 days.
- American Maritime provides a unique opportunity to ship at reduced rates on direct shuttle services using a regular schedule from Puerto Rico to the United States, unleashing Puerto Rican agricultural exports.
Taste the Nation has great potential to tell the story of how food is produced and transported around this great nation, and American Maritime in Puerto Rico is proud to deliver fresh, on-time, and reliable food to the Island. We hope that Ms. Lakshmi will visit and learn more.
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In response to the video clip: “America’s Ridiculous Tax on Puerto Rican Food” – June 2023
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