Why is the American trucking industry the only major sector of the U.S. economy with virtually no restrictions on foreign ownership?
It’s not hypothetical. It’s not academic. It’s happening right now, every single day, on every interstate you drive. Foreign nationals who have never held an American passport and may never have set foot on American soil are registering motor carriers, obtaining USDOT numbers, and putting 80,000-pound commercial vehicles on our highways. No citizenship verification. No ownership restrictions. No questions asked beyond the paperwork.
While trucking may be the most unregulated sector in America from an ownership standpoint, nearly every other critical industry in this country has built high walls around exactly who gets to own and operate within our borders.
This is the story of that disparity.
THE FISH. HOW AMERICA PROTECTS ITS CATCH
I learned this lesson firsthand years ago, when I was running Old Point Packing in Newport News, Virginia. Timmy Daniels owned the business, and at the time, Cooke Aquaculture, the Canadian seafood giant run by Glenn Cooke out of New Brunswick, was in the process of buying Timmy’s other company, Wanchese Fish Company. That deal, which closed in 2015 under the banner of the newly formed Cooke Seafood USA, was never a simple handshake.
The sticking point was citizenship. Glenn Cooke is Canadian, not American. Under the American Fisheries Act of 1998, at least 75 percent of a fishing vessel’s ownership and control must be vested in U.S. citizens. The law doesn’t just cover the boats. It covers the catch. It covers the mortgages. It covers who can pull protein from American waters. The Maritime Administration, MARAD, is responsible for determining whether vessels over 100 feet are owned and controlled by U.S. citizens and eligible for a fishery endorsement. Foreign investment through mortgages is capped at 25 percent. Period.
This wasn’t a new fight for the Daniels family. Wanchese Fish Company had been operating since 1936, when W.R. Etheridge, a Wanchese fisherman from an old Outer Banks family, built a processing operation that his son-in-law, Malcolm Daniels, eventually turned into an international seafood powerhouse. The Etheridge and Daniels families knew the rules: American waters, American ownership. That’s the deal.
Cooke eventually structured the deal through Cooke Seafood USA to satisfy citizenship requirements, and the acquisition proceeded. Even a Canadian family, from one of America’s closest allies, with a six-generation history in the fishing business, couldn’t simply write a check and own an American fishery outright. The law wouldn’t allow it.
THE JONES ACT: 75 PERCENT AMERICAN OR DON’T BOTHER
The fisheries restriction is a branch of a much larger tree. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, better known as the Jones Act, remains one of the most sweeping protectionist statutes in American law. It requires that any vessel engaged in coastwise trade, shipping between two U.S. ports, must meet four tests: it must be U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, at least 75 percent U.S.-owned at every tier of the corporate structure, and crewed by at least 75 percent U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
That 75 percent rule isn’t fuzzy math. For publicly traded companies, it requires regular monitoring of shareholder citizenship at every level of the corporate hierarchy. If a single transaction pushes foreign ownership above 25 percent at any tier, the vessel loses its Jones Act qualification, potentially forever. Forty-seven nations maintain similar cabotage protections. Congress decided more than a century ago that the American merchant marine was too important to national security to hand over to foreign interests.
You can debate whether the Jones Act is good policy. Critics point to inflated shipping costs; a Government Accountability Office report found that operating a Jones Act-compliant vessel costs roughly $6.2 to $6.5 million more annually than a comparable open-registry ship. Supporters argue it’s the backbone of a reserve fleet the military can call on in wartime. But nobody on either side argues that we should just let anyone from anywhere own American shipping infrastructure without restriction.
Nobody, that is, except the trucking industry. Or more accurately, the people who regulate it.
THE AIRLINES: AMERICANS FLY AMERICAN
If the Jones Act built a wall around American shipping, the airline industry poured the concrete even thicker. Under the Air Commerce Act of 1926 and the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, U.S. law requires that at least 75 percent of the voting interest in any domestic airline be owned or controlled by U.S. citizens. The president of the airline must be an American citizen. At least two-thirds of the board of directors must be American citizens. And the airline must be under the “actual control” of U.S. citizens, a standard the Department of Transportation evaluates on a case-by-case basis.
When Virgin America launched in 2007, the DOT initially found that the airline failed to meet ownership and control requirements because Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, controlled by British citizens, had too much influence. Virgin America had to restructure its entire ownership, governance, and management before the DOT would certify it. A British billionaire with decades of airline experience couldn’t run an American airline without proving Americans were actually in charge.
Even aircraft registration follows the same logic. Under federal law, you cannot register a civil aircraft with the FAA unless you are a U.S. citizen, or your corporation meets the same 75-percent-American-ownership threshold that applies to airlines. If your registration is invalid because you don’t meet the citizenship requirement, the consequences include monetary penalties for every single flight, potential criminal liability, and possible forfeiture of the aircraft itself.
THE AIRWAVES: CONTROLLING THE MESSAGE
Turn on the radio or the television, and you’re interacting with another industry that Congress decided was too sensitive for unlimited foreign control. Section 310(b) of the Communications Act of 1934 restricts direct foreign ownership of a broadcast station to 20 percent, and indirect foreign ownership through a parent company to 25 percent. For more than 80 years, the Federal Communications Commission treated that 25 percent threshold as essentially a hard ceiling.
The rationale was national security and the prevention of propaganda. In 1934, Congress worried that foreign powers could use American broadcast infrastructure to influence public opinion. The FCC has relaxed its approach somewhat in recent years, approving indirect ownership above 25 percent on a case-by-case basis, including a landmark 2016 decision that allowed an Australian couple to reach 100 percent indirect ownership of a licensee. However, every request undergoes a rigorous public-interest review, including referral to Team Telecom, an interagency body that assesses national security risk.
The telecommunications industry is subject to similar scrutiny. The FCC has approved approximately 150 foreign investments exceeding 25 percent in wireless carriers and other common carriers, but each one required a detailed review of ownership structures, management control, and security implications.
SPLITTING ATOMS AND BUILDING BOMBS
If broadcasting is sensitive, nuclear energy is a locked vault. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is prohibited by law from issuing licenses for the production and handling of atomic energy to any individual, corporation, or entity that is owned, controlled, or dominated by a foreign corporation or foreign government. When foreign participation has been permitted in NRC-licensed activities, it has been subject to strict conditions: no more than 50 percent foreign ownership, all directors and officers must be U.S. citizens who are not controlled by foreign entities, and only U.S. citizens with security clearances may access restricted plant technology.
Defense contracting follows the same principle to its logical extreme. Nearly all positions with defense contractors require U.S. citizenship. Security clearances, Secret, Top Secret, and higher, require U.S. citizenship with no exceptions. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) reviews foreign acquisitions that could affect national security and has the authority to block transactions or require divestitures, sometimes years after a deal has closed. This month, CFIUS issued a request for information to streamline its review process, underscoring the government’s seriousness about foreign investment in sensitive sectors.
THE LAND BENEATH YOUR FEET
America’s mineral resources carry their own citizenship requirements. The Mineral Lands Leasing Act of 1920 restricts foreign ownership of leases for coal, oil, gas, phosphate, sodium, and other mineral deposits on federal lands, allowing foreign participation only on a reciprocal basis, meaning the foreign investor’s home country must grant equivalent access to Americans.
Agricultural land is following the same trajectory, and fast. Twenty-nine states now restrict or limit foreign ownership of private farmland, with several more considering legislation. Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, North Dakota, and others have enacted targeted bans on land purchases by entities connected to adversary nations, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds summarized the sentiment at a bill signing: “American soil belongs in American hands.” Federal law already requires foreign owners to report agricultural land purchases through the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. According to the most recent USDA data, foreign entities hold approximately 43 million acres of U.S. agricultural land, representing roughly 3.4 percent of all privately held land.
In 2021, fewer than 15 states had foreign ownership restrictions on farmland. By 2025, that number nearly doubled, driven by high-profile purchases near military installations and a bipartisan consensus that food security is national security.
AND THEN THERE’S TRUCKING
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency charged with regulating more than 500,000 trucking companies, imposes no citizenship requirements on who may own a motor carrier operating on American highways. None. There is no 75 percent rule. There is no 25 percent threshold. There is no CFIUS review. There is no Team Telecom referral. There is no restriction whatsoever on a foreign national living in a foreign country from forming a U.S. LLC, obtaining a USDOT number, and dispatching commercial vehicles across every state in the union.
A person who cannot legally own a fishing boat in American waters, who cannot own 26 percent of a radio station, who cannot register a Cessna, who cannot hold a single share in an S corporation, can own and operate a trucking company responsible for the lives of every motorist on the road.
The FMCSA registration process asks for an Employer Identification Number. It asks for proof of insurance and a BOC-3 designation of process agent. It asks you to check a box on the MCS-150 form. What it does not ask, what it has never asked, is whether you are an American citizen. The application does not require proof of citizenship. It does not require proof of residency. It does not require that owners, officers, or directors be Americans. It does not even require that the company’s beneficial owner be disclosed in any meaningful way that would allow the agency to determine who actually controls the trucks moving down the highway.
Under NAFTA and later the USMCA, the U.S. lifted restrictions that had previously allowed Mexican investors to acquire up to 100 percent of a U.S.-based trucking company engaged in international cargo. But the broader reality is that FMCSA has never had a comprehensive foreign-ownership restriction for domestic carriers. The moratorium that existed before 2001 applied only to carriers domiciled in contiguous foreign countries. It said nothing about investors from China, Russia, Turkey, India, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or anywhere else.
THE SAFETY GAP
This has real-world safety implications. When foreign ownership is opaque, so is accountability. Chameleon carriers, trucking companies that shut down after crashes or enforcement actions only to reopen under new names, thrive in an environment where beneficial ownership is invisible. A carrier operating out of a Chicago-area terminal can be shut down on Monday and reappear on Tuesday under a new LLC, a new USDOT number, and the same foreign ownership structure that was never scrutinized in the first place.
When the Jones Act is violated, Customs and Border Protection assesses penalties that can reach the full value of the cargo. When airline ownership requirements are violated, the DOT can revoke operating certificates. When FCC foreign ownership thresholds are breached, the licensee has 10 days to self-report and 30 days to remediate or face enforcement. When does a trucking company’s foreign ownership enable fraud, shell company proliferation, or safety evasion? There is no mechanism to even detect it, let alone enforce against it.
The FMCSA regulates safety, hours of service, vehicle maintenance, and driver qualifications. It does not regulate ownership. And in an era when Congress, state legislatures, and regulatory agencies across every other sector of the American economy are tightening scrutiny on foreign ownership, trucking remains an island of indifference.
THE SCORECARD
Here’s where we stand. The maritime industry requires 75 percent U.S. ownership at every corporate tier, vessels built in America, and crews that are 75 percent American. The fishing industry requires 75 percent American ownership of vessels and catch rights, with MARAD personally certifying compliance with citizenship requirements. Airlines require 75 percent American voting interest, an American president, a two-thirds American board, and actual American control. Broadcasting caps direct foreign ownership at 20 percent and indirect at 25 percent, with a case-by-case review above those levels. Nuclear energy bars foreign-dominated entities from holding licenses entirely. Defense contracting requires U.S. citizenship for virtually all personnel, with CFIUS reviewing every foreign acquisition. Mining restricts foreign access to federal mineral leases. Agricultural land ownership is now restricted in 29 states, with federal reporting requirements and a growing movement toward outright bans on purchases from adversary nations. Even civil aircraft registration requires either U.S. citizenship or 75 percent U.S. corporate ownership.
And trucking? Trucking requires a $300 application fee and an internet connection.
What Now?
There are 4.3 million active motor carriers in the FMCSA database. The agency processes thousands of new registrations every month. In an era of heightened concern about critical infrastructure security, supply chain integrity, and foreign adversary influence in the American economy, none of those registrations are screened for foreign ownership.
We protect our fish. We protect our airwaves. We protect our skies and our ships and our atoms and our farmland. We do not protect our highways.
The question is why, in a country that restricts foreign ownership in virtually every other sector that touches national security, public safety, and critical infrastructure, we’ve decided that the industry responsible for moving 72 percent of the nation’s freight doesn’t warrant the same scrutiny. Today’s feature photo is a screenshot from the THE TEA, (www.theteintel.com) which is free for launch, but serves as a highway intelligence platform that maps foreign labor pipelines, tracks foreign carrier ownership structures, detects chameleon carriers through shared VINs and officer networks, and scores every carrier 0-100 on real risk, to learn more on the pl,atform and foreign trucking ownership, and not just aggregated data. Join free at theteaintel.com.
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