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The ship in the article left Georgia to Baltimore, you cannot move goods from and to the USA with a boat that is not registered in the USA.

That's is why only few cruise ship start and end their trips in the USA.

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Curiously, this vessel appears to have been registered in the Marshal Islands, which is an independent nation with a rather unusual relationship [0] to the US that I hadn't heard of before. Presumably the law that requires US registration has a special provision allowing this? I wonder if the crew requirements are more relaxed with a Marshal Islands registration?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association

The difference is that the law only applies to ships that carry goods or passengers from one US port to another. Ships are allowed to (and often do) call at multiple US ports on a voyage, they just can't unload goods in one US port that were loaded in another.

For instance, the ship could have carried cars made at the Kia and Hyundai plants in Mexico to the US, and also loaded cars made at the plants in Georgia and Alabama for delivery to the Middle East.

Correct - vessels on US cabotage-restricted routes will always be registered (and crewed etc) in the US.

The law keeps a fleet of US shipping vessels and seamen around, but makes some things in Hawaii quite a bit more expensive.

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