Another case of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot.
The deal closing comes after a key House panel voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block its plan to acquire the right to manage terminals at several major U.S. seaports, setting President Bush and defiant House Republicans on course for a major legislative collision.
The House Appropriations Committee voted 62 to 2 to amend an emergency-spending measure with language that would effectively bar Dubai Ports World from taking over terminal operations from P&O.
Yes, they tacked this ports mess to a spending bill for Katrina relief and for war appropriations. This kind of knee-jerk reaction is something that will get them booted out of Congress come this fall. This Dubai company has bent over backwards and gone beyond what they need to and the Repubs pulls this kind of stunt. They even put the President in a bad position by forcing him to veto a spending bill for disaster relief and body armor. Way to help out those sagging approval ratings numbers.
I think we can chalk this all up to anti-Arab sentiment. Dubai doesn't want to destroy Israel or kill Americans like Iran. They probably have about the same amount of lurking Al-Quida operatives as any Saudi company yet we do business everyday with them. And the whole idea of "foreigners" running our ports being bad sounds like some thinking out of the 1800s. Everyone forgets that the company that originally ran the ports was a British company. I guess they aren't as "foreign" as those untrustworthy Aaarabs.
This is only going to hurt US companies looking to do M&A abroad. Whenever a US company wants to buy a foreign firm we should understand that the stonewalling and blocks set up by their country as justifiable anti-American sentiment. I mean we blocked Dubai Ports World so they will be justified in blocking Exxon, Merril Lynch, or whoever. This kind of knee-jerk protectionism will get us in recession mode if they aren't careful.
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