Foreign cruise lines should not get a bailout

The hubris of the cruise lines is unbelievable! The industry counts U.S. citizens among their largest groups of customers but does not protect those passengers with the benefit of U.S. health, safety and labor laws. They register their ships under foreign flags in Panama, the Bahamas (like one wellknown Baltimore-based cruise ship) and even Liberia, which enables them to pay low wages, skirt U.S. laws and avoid tough scrutiny. They also avoid federal tax.

Should they really be looking for a bailout from the U.S. government for a pandemic of which they play no small part (“Empty hotels. Idled tour buses. The pandemic is devastating tourism,” April 3)? The cruise industry’s avoidance of being held to U.S. health, safety and labor requirements has contributed to the rapid spread of a deadly disease. Now they sit with hat in hand, their stock values in tatters. Their financial wounds are self-inflicted and the disservice that they have done to their pandemicaffected passengers is unconscionable.

For too many years, the cruise lines have been enabled to avoid publicity and responsibility for the consequences of their actions. They certainly should not be looking to the current administration to add them to the list of American companies who abide by U.S. laws, but, by no fault of their own, have been devastated by the current pandemic crisis.

Hopefully, the Trump administration will not be giving money to these companies who, shielded by a powerful lobby in Washington, have managed for so many years to make immense profits from U.S. citizens while not providing them with the full protection of U.S. laws. A foreign company which evades U.S. laws has no right to a U.S. bailout. It’s high time for cruise lines on the high seas to reflag under our star-spangled banner and start following U.S. health, safety and labor laws.

Sean Paul Gibbons, Hampstead