“Union, Justice, Confidence.” Our state motto, adopted more than a century ago, urges Louisianans to earn unity and prosperity through real work, not just talk. From the first oil well at Jennings to today’s liquefied-natural-gas docks and petrochemical corridors, the people of Louisiana have lived that creed.
The results speak for themselves. In 2024, Louisiana companies shipped $87 billion in goods abroad, making our state the fourth biggest exporter in the nation. Exports now equal 27.6 percent of state GDP and support about 238,000 paychecks, whether on drilling platforms off Port Fourchon or in rice fields near Crowley.
This impressive success is partially powered by a quiet policy tool called duty drawback.
When a Louisiana plant imports crude oil, bauxite, or chemical feedstocks, it pays a tariff. When those raw materials are transformed and later exported as refined fuel, plastic pellets, or aluminum products, the federal government refunds the tariff. The idea, written into Alexander Hamilton’s first tariff statute, refunds the tariff so local producers can export and compete head-to-head with foreign rivals on price and quality.
Consider the massive ExxonMobil Baton Rouge refinery, the sixth largest in the country, where thousands of hard-working Louisianans turn foreign crude into jet fuel and lubricants that sail out through the Mississippi River. It is the same with the Plaquemine complex that converts imported naphtha into polyethylene, which is shipped to every continent. Duty drawback allows these plants to hire union pipefitters, buy sugar-cane byproducts for boilers, and still win contracts to export their “Made in Louisiana” products across the globe.
A Poison Pill in the “Big Beautiful Bill”
The problem is that special interests have tried to sneak a dangerous provision inside Washington’s sprawling “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB). The provision targeted a specific duty drawback in the agricultural sector to give another company a competitive advantage. If lobbyists can target farmers of specific crops, Washington special interests can utilize their influence and harm Louisiana’s industries as well. Such a crisis would threaten Louisiana’s economy and the workers that rely on these jobs.
Statewide Threat
Limiting the effectiveness of the duty drawback program jeopardizes industry throughout Louisiana. Petroleum facilities that anchor the lower Mississippi River utilize this program. Repealing it would chill expansion plans for companies with major Louisiana facilities that are in the planning stage and send a terrible message to companies that Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry is working to bring to our state.
Sugar, rice, and timber producers rely on affordable bulk chemicals, diesel, and plastics supplied by the same plants. A cut in industrial demand echoes upstream to farm income and parish budgets. From Lake Charles to the Port of New Orleans, our state’s economy depends on the steady flow of export cargo that the duty drawback program keeps competitive.
The Solution: Eliminate the Carve-Out
The duty drawback repeal must remain out of the OBB. Louisiana Senators John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy, joined by colleagues such as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, have fought to keep the Senate version clean. Now it is imperative to insist the duty drawback program is protected in the final version of the OBBB.
Safeguarding duty drawback aligns perfectly with President Donald Trump’s pledge to “Unleash American Manufacturing.” It also dovetails with Louisiana’s bipartisan strategy to diversify into innovative and growing industries that rely on global sales cycles measured in decades, not election seasons.
Duty drawback is not a loophole. Instead, it is the oil in Louisiana’s export engine and the glue that binds riverfront cities to rural parishes. If we leave it intact, Louisiana can keep writing a success story that turns bayou grit into global market share. If it is repealed, Washington D.C. lobbyists will drain the very pipeline that carries prosperity from the Gulf Coast to Main Street.
Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America’s Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-9 a.m. & 6-7 p.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com . He is a political columnist, the author of America’s Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff CrouereYouTube channel and on Crouere.net . For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com.