[HappySweeney]

The US Navy ensures the world's shipping lanes are free from piracy. Without this, our imports would be much more expensive. Someone with better math skills than me could verify this, but I imagine this endevor is net profitable.

[rantwasp]

cost of something != it’s environmental impact.

so you would have more expensive imports, maybe. and you would move to produce things locally. also, the cheap imports are cheap because there is a human price (ie basically slavery) paid at the origin. if you produced things ethically they would be more expensive rendering the navy useless as you would once again shift to producing locally.

also, since when does the us navy provide this service? i mean maybe it provides it, but i have a hard time believing it protects all the shipping lanes all the time (ie other nations surely protect their trading routes)

[HappySweeney]

It's only the international lanes, and since the '50's iirc, but can't look that up atm.