[Alberta's Child]

Very interesting. The Jones Act of 1920 is a U.S. maritime law that may not apply to Great Lakes shipping in any case (these would likely be governed by agreements between the U.S. and Canada).

And Canadian National Railway is a publicly-traded company, so it probably wouldn't qualify as a "foreign" company even if it is headquartered in Canada. Most of the shareholders are American, and the railroad's U.S. operations are subject to regulatory oversight by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

The bigger point regarding the Jones Act and the BP oil disaster is that I'm not sure the Jones Act applies at all. The Jones Act covers ships moving cargo or passengers between U.S. ports . . . I've never understood it to mean that it covers ALL ships working in U.S. waters.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Jones Act is the only reason there is an American fleet on the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Fleet moves iron ore from Two Harbors and Duluth, Minnesota to Gary, Indiana, then picks up stone at Rogers City, Michigan for offloading at Duluth, which is railed to the iron ore processing plants to make flux pellets (iron ore with limestone in the feedstock.)
Until the CN buyout of Great Lakes Fleet, the Lakes shipping association jealously guarded any intrusion into US-port-to-US-port cargo movement. They screamed their heads off when a Japanese company tried to buy an inland grain barging company on the Mississippi and actually stopped this purchase.
CN is a pure Canadian company which, according to the Jones Act, cannot move cargo from and to American ports. They single handedly destroyed the Jones Act by buying an American fleet and no one in Minnesota or DC made a whimper.