The Dubai Ports Deal Has Gone Through UPDATED!

Despite the headlines today that the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 62-2 against the sale of terminal operations of US ports to Dubai World, the deal, in which those operations change hands to an UAE corporation has indeed gone through today.

I know it sounds impossible, with the nearly unanimous anger that the announcement of the sale of such a sensitive US resource caused, but as of today, it's a done deal.

Here's the story from London's respected MarketWatch, sort of a British version of the Wall Street Journal (I've shortened the address with tinyurl, to make it easier to find):

/z89lg

Yeah, buddy. You didn't really think that with this kind of money at stake a little thing like National Security was going to get in the way, did you?

There is a common legal principle that when a deal is done, it's much harder to undo. If the opponents to the UAE deal were really serious about stopping this travesty, they could easily have prevented today's closing from happening simply by filing suit, but it would have taken the involvement of the US Attorney General, who is basically the legal representative of the United States of America. I don't want this thread to be moved to the political ghetto, so I won't explain why we're not going to see Atty General Gonzalez going to bat against Dubai Ports World, but any of you who've looked into the financial histories of the leader of the free world will understand why this is so.

I'm interested in the opinions of the ATS community on this one. Are you surprised to learn that the deal which puts the operations of 6 US ports in the hands of a company from a country that is a state sponsor of terrorism has gone through in the midst of all the supposed opposition to this deal in Congress? Not to mention that more than 85% of Americans are opposed to this deal as seen in polls in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Harris?

Sleep well, fellow Americans.

[edit on 3/9/2006 by vuoto]

UAE has backed out.. at least thats how im taking it?

From CNN.com

www.cnn.com...



Derek

Yeah, he got it right. See this thread for more info.

UAE To Transfer Port Authority to a US Company

The US ports were only 6% of the UAE's total deal so they didn't mind shelving that small piece of the pie.

[edit on 9-3-2006 by dbates]

This is getting confusing.

CNN is reporting that Dubai Ports World is "backing out" of the ports deal, but the closing of the purchase of P&O by DPW has closed. If P&O owns the operating rights to the ports, and DPW buys P&O, it would seem that they now would have to divest itself of those operating rights. The question is: "divest to whom?"

rawstory.com...

CNN is also reporting that "UAE firm to transfer port operations to U.S. 'entity'" I wonder who that "entity" is, and whether the Vice President is a former CEO of that "entity".

Bottom line is that Dubai Ports World still has ownership of the terminal operations at the US ports. Transferring the operation of those ports might mean anything from a complete severance of DPW's influence to the American "entity" being a titular operator only with DPW still in control.

NBC correspondent David Gregory asks the question whether this announcement today by DPW was coordinated with or by the White House.

A quick survey: who really thinks this is the end of the story and that DPW is really out of the picture. How many international corporations of that size are willing to just back away from a lucrative 6.8 billion dollar deal?
Who wants to bet that the American "entity" is going to be part of the Carlyle Group??

my thoughts when i saw the article on CNN earlier were that BUSH was trying to save face and cut some deal behind the scenes.

he had already told SENATE that he would veto any legislation against the DUBAI deal...................

so that was going to be a HUGE showdown.............AND the REPUBLICANS were AGAINST him on the plan................

so to save face.................he cuts deal BEHIND scenes with DUBAI and comes out relatively sweet smelling in the whole scheme of things.


just my thoughts..........


angie

Yet again we see the double-dealing America applying double standards.

It's fine for the US to buy up companies and assets anywhere in the world (having insisted via WTO that everywhere operates on free-trade principles) but when it comes to a foreign company buying something in the US or US defence procurement you claim 'special interest' and protect your markets.

One law for the rulers and another for the ruled?