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P&O jointly operates (with a company called Port Newark Container Terminal) of one of the Port Authority's seven container terminals under a lease arrangement with the agency. If there are any details of the proposed acquisition that the Port Authority finds unacceptable, the agency can simply terminate the operator's lease on the property and prohibit any vessels from the UAE-owned company from making port calls in New York and New Jersey.

Actually, it isn't quite that simple. These are long-term leases and concession agreements. IIRC, in some cases (depending on the port), the port authorities enter into land leases and the operators own and finance the improvements (facilities) and in some cases, separate investment companies own the improvements. But the point is still, containers are shipped into and through the ports by a company that has questionable loyalty to the U.S.

And as to the lease provisions that permit the Ports to merely cancel the leases...again, it isn't as simply as that I imagine. When there are hundreds of millions of assets involved, the cancellation provision are quite complicated and if there is a cancellation, I would think there would be complicated unwinding procedures for just compensation to all parties.

I do agree with your point that the operators are not buying the ports. I think that was naive of the writer of the article to make such a statement.

But I repeat, this acquisition by Dubai Ports World needs very careful analysis. It does give an islamic country tantamount ownership (if partially through long-term lease agreements) in major U.S. ports.

According to information posted on another thread, there is a formal 30-day review period under which all of these merger/acquisition deals are scrutinized by the Federal government and other affected parties. This period came and went without anyone raising even the slightest concern over it -- probably for the reasons I've discussed here.

All of these people -- from Chuck Schumer to Peter King to the chairman of the Port Authority of NY/NJ to everyone else who has come out and expressed public "concern" about the deal -- are simply covering their @sses and engaging in this political posturing because of all the gross distortions that have been put out there in all of these stupid articles and editorials.

Ironically, the chairman of the Port Authority of NY/NJ has more power here than anyone else. If he simply stood up tomorrow and publicly announced that he would make every attempt to cancel the P&O leases at Port Newark/Elizabeth and eliminate all berthing rights for P&O ships at all of the New York and New Jersey facilities, this deal would collapse immediately. There's no way in hell this UAE-owned company would pay $6.8 billion for P&O if they no longer have access to the largest port facility on the eastern seabord of the United States (in the world's largest consumer market).