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Late last year, the Danish shipping giant AP Moller Maersk announced robust third-quarter profits of $2.25 billion. To get the good word out, the company’s chief operating officer sent a message to his crews aboard ships around the world, inviting them to join him in celebration by having a piece of traditional Danish lagkage, a kind of cream cake.

Mark Dickinson, head of the Nautilus International seafarers’ union, scoffed at the boss’s invitation, comparing it to French monarch Marie Antoinette’s infamous “let them eat cake” comment. Noted Dickinson, “The profits have been achieved on the back of job losses for highly skilled and experienced personnel, and cuts in operating costs that have left some ships with food budgets that would barely run to covering the costs of cooking cream cakes.”

The United States is no longer a major seafaring nation, but we have become increasingly dependent on the volatile global shipping industry. Cargo vessels registered in the United States and Canada account for only 1 percent of global shipping capacity; however, a far larger share of world cargo traffic moves to or from our ports. North America laps up 27 percent of all oil traded internationally, and one of every five filled shipping containers worldwide is headed either away from or (more often) toward the United States. And to help reduce our trade deficit, 44 percent of all grain entering international trade is shipped from a U.S. port.