This strikes me as a bit of a “camel’s nose” kind of thing. Once a protected market starts getting flooded with crap, the bottom falls out. We’ve seen this many times, throughout history. Usually, a small number of folks get very rich, though.

One reason that US-flagged shipping is more expensive, is because we have stricter requirements than many other nations. It’s not a guarantee of safety (Exxon Valdez, anyone?), but it does raise the floor. That’s why you have all these whacky-flagged rustbuckets [barely] floating around (occasionally with disastrous consequences).