As I've said, the Dubai ports deal is one of the few cases where I agreed with Bush's stance; he was acting in accordance with approved law and capitalist commerce and IMO the security issue was tenuous at best.
Oh, BTW, this is most amusing: news.bbc.co.uk
A Dubai-owned firm is already providing shipping services in the United States, it has emerged.
Inchcape Shipping Services, whose clients include the US Navy, has been owned since January by the United Arab Emirates investment firm Istithmar.
Fellow Dubai firm Dubai Ports World has agreed to cede control of US ports acquired in its takeover of P&O to a "US entity" after a political outcry.
The US Congress threatened to block the takeover on security grounds. Republican and Democrat politicians both claimed that the deal would make key US assets more vulnerable to terrorist attack.
However, as Dubai Ports World conceded the deal would not go ahead as planned, it emerged that Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS) has had extensive interests in the US for many years.
ISS arranges pilots, tugs and dock workers for shipping companies and works with the US Customs to ensure the smooth arrival and departure of vessels at ports such as New York, New Jersey and San Francisco. ISS was bought by Istithmar, an investment firm ultimately owned by the Dubai royal family, for $285m in January.
...
Trade experts said the Dubai Ports World saga would set a damaging precedent for other Middle Eastern firms planning to invest in the US.
"It is just assuming that if a company is from the Middle East it is de facto disqualified from investing in the United States, and I think that is a terrible message to send," said Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute's Centre for Trade Policy Studies.
Not only investment from the ME. If firms believe they cannot get a fair market for assets they buy in good faith, because the market is artificially and politically limited, they won't offer good prices for them - and few things deter investment more than post-facto restrictions on a sale in this fashion... |
