U.S. historically has always advocated for preservation of freedom of navigation rights

Furthermore, the treaty's critics badly misunderstand history in trying to paint the measure as somehow un-American. The United States has long championed freedom of the seas. President Thomas Jefferson built a navy to resist the Barbary pirates when European governments paid tribute to safely transit the Mediterranean. The War of 1812 was fought largely over the right of U.S. merchant ships to ply the seas freely, engaging in nascent global trade. Freedom of the seas was a feature of Wilson's Fourteen Points in World War I and was one of the war aims included in the Atlantic Charter by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.

During negotiations of the Law of the Sea Convention, U.S diplomats were successful in ensuring that these time-honored principles were incorporated into the treaty in 1982, advancing U.S. interests in naval power and fueling the trade globalization of the 1990s. This is a core U.S. national interest in the oceans, and the Law of the Sea locks in generous navigational provisions that apply throughout the globe -- both for naval vessels and merchant shipping.