Ah, the American Seafoods Company… an iconic cornerstone of American culture since its
founding by a Norwegian billionaire all the way back in 1988. But as one of the largest and most
prominent seafood importers in the world, you wouldn’t expect their practices to be so… fishy.
Or, well… obviously they’re fishy, but I mean the other kind of fishy, the not-fish
fishy, the fishy that… look, the point is, the federal government is investigating them for
using an insane legal loophole involving a secret railroad to nowhere and international borders in
Maine to dodge World War I-era shipping laws. And where there are corporations committing
whacky crimes, there are educational YouTubers to profit off of explaining how they did it.
So, let’s explain how they did it! You see, shipping goods in the US comes with a few
patriotic caveats. After the blockades of World War I, the US decided that they needed to be able
to do all of their shipping themselves, and that relying on other countries to move their goods
was for poor people. So, in 1920, they passed the Merchant Marine Act, better known for its infamous
subsection, the Jones Act. This, essentially, prohibits any foreign vessels from moving goods
between any two US ports—after all, those foreign vessels could be smuggling dangerous exotic cargo,
like Kinder Eggs or free healthcare. But mostly, this act was designed to keep American shipping
companies strong, so if all of the other countries turn Nazi, or zombie, or Nazi-zombie, we would
still have enough ships to get by on our own. To this day, the only ships that can transport goods
domestically are ones that are American-flagged, crewed by at least 75% American citizens, and
constructed out of at least 90% American steel. Under a similar law, the same restrictions apply
to transporting America’s most precious cargo: corn. I mean, uh, Americans. This
is why American cruises always need to stop over in a foreign country like Canada or Mexico—since
cruise ships are generally only constructed in Germany, Finland, France, or Italy, they can’t
qualify as American vessels, and therefore can’t legally transport people exclusively between US
ports. There’s only one exception—the Pride of America—which was constructed to serve the
Hawaiian islands, since there are no foreign ports nearby. And before you tell me that I already made
a video about that, that was in the Before Times. As far as I’m concerned, the pandemic wiped the
slate clean. Those videos don’t count anymore. I hope you’re all excited for my next topic, “Why
Photos of the Eiffel Tower at Night are Illegal,” which we project will get 10 million views.
Now, as you might imagine, these sorts of laws make shipping things between US ports
more expensive, since American shipping companies—who don’t have to compete with
foreign alternatives—are subject to all sorts of stringent labor laws like “you have to pay
your workers 7.25 an hour,” and “slavery is mostly illegal.” Naturally, any business guy
that’s read The Art of Being an Evil Business Guy would know to start looking for a loophole,
and in 2012, the American Seafoods Company finally found one. It has to do with a part
of the Jones Act called the “third proviso,” which essentially creates an exception—meaning the act
doesn’t apply—to any goods that have spent any part of their journey on a Canadian rail line.
With this knowledge, a lot of companies would just try to find a practical way to incorporate
a Canadian rail journey into their supply chain, but apparently that wasn’t cunning enough for the
American Seafoods Company. You see, the American Seafoods Company doesn’t do things the easy way,
they do things the American Seafoods Company way. So, instead, they invented the following scheme to
move their fish from Alaska to Maine: Step one: Acquire fish.
Step two: Load those fish onto a dirt-cheap foreign-flagged vessel in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
Step three: Send that ship down through the Panama Canal and up to New Brunswick,
Canada, right over the border from Maine. Step four: Use the money you would’ve
wasted chartering an American ship to buy yourself a really fancy hat.
Step five: Load those fish onto a truck and drive that truck onto the “Bayside Canadian Railway,”
a super real train line with exactly two stops 100 feet away from each other.
Step six: Send the flatbed railcar for a scenic 45-second round-trip journey to all
the best spots in Canada, like the Bayside dock and 100 feet south of the Bayside dock.
Step seven: Drive your newly-Jones-Act-exempt fish across the border into Maine. Mm-mm,
nothing hits the spot like a Jones-Act-exempt fish!
And that’s about it. Obviously this plan was stupid because the government caught on in
record time—it only took them nine years. Now the American Seafoods Company and their partners
are potentially on the hook for $350 million in fines, since the third proviso requires
the railway to be officially recognized by the US Surface Transportation Board and,
shockingly, the company did not properly register their scam with the government.
But you know what’s also a scam? Every single streaming site except for CuriosityStream and
Nebula. That’s because at CuriosityStream.com/HAI, it’s just $15 a year for an entire year of access
to both CuriosityStream and Nebula. Believe it or not, even while paying the same for a year of
two streaming services as you pay for a month of others, you’ll still be helping support
loads of independent creators. Of course, that’s because Nebula is the creator founded and run
streaming service where we put all our normal videos early and ad-free, exclusive companion
videos and extended cuts, and big-budget Nebula originals like the HAI Bricks Special. Meanwhile,
CuriosityStream is home to a huge catalogue of top-notch nonfiction shows and documentaries,
including the unexpectedly captivating documentary about Mr Beast. Once again,
you can get both these sites for less than $15 a year by clicking the button on-screen or by
heading to CuriosityStream.com/HAI, so head over there and get the best deal in streaming today.