UAE-based company pulls out of deal to take over US ports

[Guest Vitamin X]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The collapse of efforts by a Gulf Arab company to manage U.S. ports may send a worrying message to Middle East allies,

President George W. Bush said on Friday, a day after his stinging defeat on the deal.

 

"In order to win the war on terror, we have got to strengthen our relationships and friendships with moderate Arab countries in the Middle East," Bush told newspaper editors.

 

In a possible repercussion, the United Arab Emirates broke off talks on a free trade agreement with the United States the day after the ports deal fell apart.

 

Bush suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of his own Republican allies in the U.S. Congress when state-owned Dubai Ports World surrendered to unrelenting criticism and gave up trying to manage some terminals at six major U.S. ports.

 

The UAE company said it would transfer the ports to a U.S. entity at the behest of Dubai's ruler, to allay U.S. concerns that the deal posed a threat to American national security. Details of the transfer were not outlined.

 

A leading critic of the ports deal, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), said questions remained about the company's transfer of port operations to a still-unidentified U.S. entity and promised to keep pressing the issue.

 

"If things are as they appear, this is a great victory for national security. But make no mistake, we are going to scrutinize this deal with a fine-tooth comb to make sure the separation between American port operators and Dubai Ports World is complete and security is tight as a drum," Schumer said.

 

Dubai Ports Chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, asked whether the company would sell the management rights of the U.S. ports, told Reuters: "All this is being worked out by our parties in the States." He could not say immediately how separate the U.S. entity would be from Dubai Ports.

 

Gulf Arabs reacted bitterly to the company's decision, saying the political storm that forced the emirate's hand could provoke a backlash among regional investors.

 

"Do you think we are happy this morning? The mood is black, very, very black," said a senior official in the region involved in the Dubai Ports deal.

 

Bush, who had vowed to veto congressional efforts to block the deal, praised the UAE as a committed ally in the war on terrorism.

 

"I'm concerned about a broader message this issue could send to our friends and allies around the world, particularly in the Middle East," Bush said.

 

The U.S. Trade Representative's office said the United States and UAE had postponed free trade talks that had been set for next week.

 

Officials attempted to play down the move. "This is not unusual," said USTR spokeswoman Needa Moorjani. "Just in the past few months, we've postponed rounds with Ecuador three times, Panama twice and Colombia once."

 

House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said it was probably best for "both countries to kind of step back and evaluate a little bit. We'll move on from there."

 

Treasury Secretary John Snow said the political furor over the company's withdrawn bid was an isolated case, as he tried to limit the damage to the U.S. free-trade image.

 

He insisted the United States was still "open for business."

 

"I don't view this as anything but an isolated incident," Snow said in an interview with CNBC television. "We don't want to be isolationist. We don't want to turn our backs on the rest of the world."

 

Bush and Snow conceded that the approval process of the ports deal that led to bitter congressional opposition needed to be improved.

 

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, headed by Snow, had approved the deal in a routine, quiet manner, and both Bush nor Snow had learned about it only after it was approved.

 

Democrats first complained, then Republicans leaped on it as well, not wanting to be seen as soft on national security during a congressional election year.

 

Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said congressional Republicans are running away from Bush this election year, and the port deal is the latest and most vivid example.

 

"In a way, the port deal was a godsend to them," Sabato said. "It allowed them to put a lot of daylight between themselves and a very unpopular president."

 

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the port debate has ignored the failure of the United States to adequately fund the U.S. Coast Guard.

 

"We complain about our ports being open to everybody -- but the Coast Guard is our first line of defense," Bloomberg told WABC Radio in New York.

 

A congressional Republican leadership aide said that among congressional Republicans "there was a certain level of outrage about how the whole matter was handled by the administration."

 

Personally speaking, I think this is a good thing. There's been something fishy about this whole thing from the get-go, from the state-owned company taking over terminals at six vital U.S. ports, to the secret agreement with the White House, and even further so, the "still unnamed" U.S. Entity that Dubai Ports World is transferring the deal to.

[Guest SavageRulz]

Bush is complaining that this may have negative consequences. Even if true, he only has his adimistration to blame- Snow being most prominent.

[cbacon 0]

Yesterday (March 9), in the exalted name of anti-terrorism, the Senate rebelled against its Republican leadership and joined the House in a vote to prevent a company based in a moderate, friendly Arab country from making a minor investment in the United States. When it became clear that some such blocking measure would pass, Dubai Ports World threw in the towel, announcing that it would sell all of its U.S. operations, including the management operations of six U.S. ports it recently acquired, and do business elsewhere.

 

But our brave new Congress has achieved more than the irrational spiking of one business deal. It has also sent a clear message to the Arab world: No matter how far you move along the path of modernization and cooperation, Americans may be unable to distinguish you from al-Qaeda.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

This may be true C-Bacon but it is not the whole story. If Americans cannot tell the difference between Arabs, Muslims, and al-Qaeda the Middle Eastern World have to take their share of the blame. The few voices condeming terrorist attacks have been lost in a slew of bloody attack after bloody attack. If the UAE went more out of their way and had not had a number of the 9-11 assholes running around over there prior they probably would had been able to put this deal through.

 

That does not still make this port deal a good idea or even a safe one. Turning this deal down hopefully will put a focus of the war on terror right where it belongs. In beefing up our security for real. For putting the needs of people before the needs of business. Americans can take care of themselves better than anybody else can. Making things solid over here is a much better idea than wasting our time leaving a vaccum of power in Iraq. When we eventually leave them there after it dawns on somebody in power that there is no solution in Iraq all those soldiers we sent will have died for nothing.

 

But hey, things have turned out just fine in Iraq for somebody! Fret not! Haliburton is doing just fine! Hey, that gives me an idea about how to proceed with the ports deal... Hmmmm.

[NoCalMike 0]

The public and the media are all caught up in the "security risk" part of this story, but something else people aren't discussing is the fact that our country is in so much debt that it is becoming common place to sell of our land to internation corporations in order to ease debt. Our National Forests and Prisons and many other things that should be not be privately owned, are now being sold to the highest international bidder, because our government at the moment has no concern for the growing debt.

[The Czech Republic 0]

This may be true C-Bacon but it is not the whole story. If Americans cannot tell the difference between Arabs, Muslims, and al-Qaeda the Middle Eastern World have to take their share of the blame. The few voices condeming terrorist attacks have been lost in a slew of bloody attack after bloody attack. If the UAE went more out of their way and had not had a number of the 9-11 assholes running around over there prior they probably would had been able to put this deal through.

 

That does not still make this port deal a good idea or even a safe one. Turning this deal down hopefully will put a focus of the war on terror right where it belongs. In beefing up our security for real. For putting the needs of people before the needs of business. Americans can take care of themselves better than anybody else can. Making things solid over here is a much better idea than wasting our time leaving a vaccum of power in Iraq. When we eventually leave them there after it dawns on somebody in power that there is no solution in Iraq all those soldiers we sent will have died for nothing.

This was a respectable, well-written, and eloquent CheesalaIsGood post.

 

But hey, things have turned out just fine in Iraq for somebody! Fret not! Haliburton is doing just fine!

Until that.

[Art Sandusky 0]

I was more opposed to it for the reasons NoCal posted, as well as the simple employment factor. How many Americans do these foreign companies hire on the average when they take control of this or that senselessly private institution?

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

This may be true C-Bacon but it is not the whole story. If Americans cannot tell the difference between Arabs, Muslims, and al-Qaeda the Middle Eastern World have to take their share of the blame. The few voices condeming terrorist attacks have been lost in a slew of bloody attack after bloody attack. If the UAE went more out of their way and had not had a number of the 9-11 assholes running around over there prior they probably would had been able to put this deal through.

 

That does not still make this port deal a good idea or even a safe one. Turning this deal down hopefully will put a focus of the war on terror right where it belongs. In beefing up our security for real. For putting the needs of people before the needs of business. Americans can take care of themselves better than anybody else can. Making things solid over here is a much better idea than wasting our time leaving a vaccum of power in Iraq. When we eventually leave them there after it dawns on somebody in power that there is no solution in Iraq all those soldiers we sent will have died for nothing.

This was a respectable, well-written, and eloquent CheesalaIsGood post.

 

But hey, things have turned out just fine in Iraq for somebody! Fret not! Haliburton is doing just fine!

Until that.

 

 

Well you can't please everybody all the time. Heh. My dad is very conservative and when I told him basically the same thing he accused me of being "communist leaning" for "putting the needs of people over the needs of business." But hey, benevolence costs money sometimes.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

Kotz,

 

The Longshoremen's Union still has a stranglehold on Doc employment, so the employment affect is nil anyways. Besides, they were already owned by a foreign entity anyways, thus the unemployment whatever point is moot.

 

But whatever C-Bacon posted, I subscribe too. Amazing no?

[Art Sandusky 0]

Well, I'm against any foreign ownership of our seaports, and I wouldn't be offended if other countries were the same way, as was the administration defense for the veto. It's perfectly sensible.

[Justice 0]

I also agree with C-Bac. There really wasn't anything wrong outside of 'Arabs' being in the same sentence as 'security', and fuck, the ISRAELIS stuck up for them of all people. This did nothing good for us, and only hurt us in the eyes of Arabs who wanted to work with us.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

But our brave new Congress has achieved more than the irrational spiking of one business deal. It has also sent a clear message to the Arab world: No matter how far you move along the path of modernization and cooperation, Americans may be unable to distinguish you from al-Qaeda.

 

I don't know how "far along the path of modernization" a country is when it doesn't recognize Israel & members of its ruling family went on hunting trips with bin Laden a few years back.

[Guest InuYasha]

Best of intentions/improved relations or not, the US would never have let the USSR have any kind of influence over any of it's ports 40 years ago.

 

All it takes is one sympathetic asshole working in either the port, or in the management of said port, and we'll be seeing terrorist attacks that would make 9/11 look like a picnic.

[Dr. Zaius 0]

The public and the media are all caught up in the "security risk" part of this story, but something else people aren't discussing is the fact that our country is in so much debt that it is becoming common place to sell of our land to internation corporations in order to ease debt. Our National Forests and Prisons and many other things that should be not be privately owned, are now being sold to the highest international bidder, because our government at the moment has no concern for the growing debt.

How much of the national debt is actually owed to foreigners, though? My understanding has been that its a pretty small percentage, but most of the info I have about it is rather old.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

The public and the media are all caught up in the "security risk" part of this story, but something else people aren't discussing is the fact that our country is in so much debt that it is becoming common place to sell of our land to internation corporations in order to ease debt. Our National Forests and Prisons and many other things that should be not be privately owned, are now being sold to the highest international bidder, because our government at the moment has no concern for the growing debt.

How much of the national debt is actually owed to foreigners, though? My understanding has been that its a pretty small percentage, but most of the info I have about it is rather old.

 

A little less than 1/2, from what I've read. Mostly foreign central banks.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Speaking of the deficit, a new $9 trillion cap was passed by Congress instead of, say, raising taxes like a normal country would.

 

EDIT: that should be Trillion, not Billion.

[SuperJerk 0]

But OMG THE TAX CUTS ARE FUELING THE ECONOMY!!!!

[Stephen Joseph 0]

You have no idea how bad that cap increase is.

 

I hope you all are ready to pay off that debt when you're 40, when the whole damn economy collapsed because foreigners pulled their investment out of the US. hell, the only reason why we can finance our debt is through foreign investment.

 

So remember the next time you go to caribou coffee, you're funding arabs. Buy starbucks, and buy american.

 

Note, when I say you all, I mean you all. Because my white ass will be in Mexico.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

George W. Bush: The Republican President who runs the country's finances like a liberal Democrat (hypothetically would), but gets a free pass from all the conservatives.

[Art Sandusky 0]

A liberal Democrat would tax us though. Tax and spend, man. IT'S THEIR GO-TO LABEL!

[SuperJerk 0]

Excuse me while I whip this out...

 

 

 

(Yes, I know...not so up to date...but, still effective.)

 

 

You have no idea how bad that cap increase is.

 

I hope you all are ready to pay off that debt when you're 40, when the whole damn economy collapsed because foreigners pulled their investment out of the US. hell, the only reason why we can finance our debt is through foreign investment.

 

So remember the next time you go to caribou coffee, you're funding arabs. Buy starbucks, and buy american.

 

Note, when I say you all, I mean you all. Because my white ass will be in Mexico.

 

What percentage of the debt is financed by foreign money?

[2GOLD 0]

You have no idea how bad that cap increase is.

 

I hope you all are ready to pay off that debt when you're 40, when the whole damn economy collapsed because foreigners pulled their investment out of the US. hell, the only reason why we can finance our debt is through foreign investment.

 

So remember the next time you go to caribou coffee, you're funding arabs. Buy starbucks, and buy american.

 

Note, when I say you all, I mean you all. Because my white ass will be in Mexico.

 

If you run into a white man named Pablo with his wife Chicaca, say hi cause it'll be me and mine. You'll notice me easier, I'll be dressed like one of the Three Amigos.

 

What I don't understand is why only the people are worried about this. If we are worried about it and our politicians seem more worried about stupid shit, shouldn't that be a sign to ALL of us that we need to elect some new blood and not just tow a party line come election time?

[Guest InuYasha]

You have no idea how bad that cap increase is.

 

I hope you all are ready to pay off that debt when you're 40, when the whole damn economy collapsed because foreigners pulled their investment out of the US. hell, the only reason why we can finance our debt is through foreign investment.

 

So remember the next time you go to caribou coffee, you're funding arabs. Buy starbucks, and buy american.

 

Note, when I say you all, I mean you all. Because my white ass will be in Mexico.

 

If you run into a white man named Pablo with his wife Chicaca, say hi cause it'll be me and mine. You'll notice me easier, I'll be dressed like one of the Three Amigos.

 

What I don't understand is why only the people are worried about this. If we are worried about it and our politicians seem more worried about stupid shit, shouldn't that be a sign to ALL of us that we need to elect some new blood and not just tow a party line come election time?

I'm pretty sure I can already tell you what most conservatives' election strategies are going to be going into 2008:

 

9/11 and Brokeback Mountain

 

"We're the only ones who can save you from the terrorists and the gays!"

[Art Sandusky 0]

Fuck 2008. We've got elections this year. Everyone's way too focused on who the chief executive is. Not that I blame them since the last five years have been a time of trying to give the position more and more power and it's also been more proactive than Congress.

[2GOLD 0]

Fuck 2008. We've got elections this year. Everyone's way too focused on who the chief executive is. Not that I blame them since the last five years have been a time of trying to give the position more and more power and it's also been more proactive than Congress.

 

Exactly. I want ALL of them nailed to the fucking wall. We need to majorly shake up Congress, the House and the White House. I don't care if the guys are Dems or Reps, few of the ones in Congress and the House right now are doing dick. Right now, I bet most of us could name five or six people who run around in Washington for their state that you can't name one worthwhile thing they have done or tried to do but still get put back in because of the letter by their name.

 

My state has a Governor who was more concerned with giving herself a raise and used OUR tax refund surplus. Every family was set to get back 500 dollars, NOPE cause she needed more salary for her and her staff. So why did she get re-elected? Cause she was a Dem and my state really doesn't like Republicans.

 

I rarely truly get pissed but politics is just an area that pisses me off to no end now.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Excuse me while I whip this out...

 

You think that's impressive? Check this out!

 

This is based on the last 50 years of Presidents.

[EricMM 0]

A damn good graph sir, damn good.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, boy, we sure needed to get rid of those black bars pretty quickly, didn't we?

[SuperJerk 0]

You think that's impressive? Check this out!

 

This is based on the last 50 years of Presidents.

 

Yikes.

[Justice 0]

Interesting, but it should be noted that party membership shifts. Naturally, a lot of people who are better off shift to the side of Republicans, while younger people (Who aren't pulling in much money), along with people making less money. Thusly, I'd argue that that's the ways the parties have changed along with their voters base rather than someone being favored.