-- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, February 25, 2004
In Mrs. Clinton's "hearts and minds" crusade, this will not go down as a good week. A United Arab Emirates government allied with America, that provides a Persian Gulf base for U.S. military operations, and that was the first Middle Eastern country to join the U.S. Container Security Initiative, has been rewarded with Congressional demagoguery that a company it owns can't be trusted to manage commercial operations in U.S. ports. With Mrs. Clinton herself leading the jeers.
And why? For no other reason than that it would be an Arab-owned company. If it is "foreign" ownership that's alarming, the same politicians would also be denouncing the Chinese, Singaporean and British companies that already manage some U.S. port operations. So the message that all Arabs need not apply comes through loud and clear.
Is Dubai an ally and trading partner, or a nest of terrorists? By the way, to make this argument does not mean we are accusing critics of racism. We are accusing them of error, not to rule out stupidity. These columns have long supported profiling young Middle Eastern-looking men in airport screening, for example, as a way of reducing the odds of another 9/11. But Mrs. Clinton was absolutely correct to note back in 2004 that to win the war on terror we need Arab and Muslim allies. And trashing friends who are engaging in legitimate commercial transactions is not a good way to keep those allies.
It is also not a good way to convince the world that we mean what we say about free trade and investment. The port-management business is dominated by non-American companies in part because high labor costs drove U.S. firms out of the business. That's also in part the handiwork of the International Longshoremen's Association, an affiliate of the protectionist AFL-CIO.
And, lo, the New York Sun reported this week that "nearly every politician who has been at the forefront of the opposition to the Dubai deal is on the receiving end of some Longshoreman largesse" in the form of campaign contributions. They include New York Representatives Peter King (R), Jerry Nadler (D) and Vito Fossella (R) and Senators Clinton, Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.).
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