Hard pass. This is no different to any other neoliberal effort to move more profits to the capital-owning class by offshoring more jobs under the mirage of red

Hard pass. This is no different to any other neoliberal effort to move more profits to the capital-owning class by offshoring more jobs under the mirage of reducing costs to consumers by paying people in the third-world peanuts. The US (and the EU) are able to use their significant market power to benefit consumers and workers by imposing regulation on those who want access to their markets. Access to the US financial system is one way the US can impose its will (for better or for ill) on foreign financial institutions, as one notable example. This article makes no mention of "flags of convenience" and that really gives the game away at the agenda of the neoliberal thinktanks that produced it. Maritive law is complicated. A big factor is what flag a ship flies under. Often commercial shiping will fly under a flag of a country that has next to no worker protections so countries like Liberia and even Mongolia (yes, land-locked Mongolia) ostensibly operate large commercial shipping fleets. To further escape any liability form, say, spilling millions of barrels of oil this will be further complicated by a corporation registerd in a different country operating the ship flying a flag of yet another country. The US is a huge destination for commercial shipping. The US thus has a ton of power to require certain standards of the ships that want to visit its ports and the conditions the crews operate under. Under no circumstances should we give this up for the false promise of neoliberal cost-cutting.