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Well, here is my somewhat uninformed opinion.

The leases are currently managed by american firms, which are subsidiaries of P&O, I think because of a series of purchases over the years. I know that post 9/11 the workers have to pass checks and maybe have to be americans.

Anyway, those companies can probably do the actual work, and may even be able to handle the immediate management functions.

But they were bought out because there is efficiency in largeness, and are competitive because of their current structure with a major player (P&O) to run contracts and make deals. It is hard for small players to compete in the market.

The shipping business is a very competitive business. There are a lot of ships, a lot of ports, and therefore a great pressure to be the low-cost provider of services.

Now, the shipyard loading/unloading probably isn't competitive, since it's almost all union workers and they are probably all the same in terms of how much they get paid per container, etc.. So if there is efficiencies, it has to be in the management, not in the dock works. That means that the place you really need to be perfect at is exactly what we would be losing by cutting the companies loose from their parent.

Over time, normal economics would suggest that these companies would once again be takeover targets, just like they were before, which means that the MARKET will see that it is more efficient if they are absorbed. If the law doesn't allow them to be absorbed, they will be stuck being inferior, more-expensive players in the market.

Meanwhile, they will be competing against ports and terminals AT ports that are controlled by other MAJOR players. Unless congress also forces divestitures of ALL ports and terminals, those who were unfortunate enough to get caught in an election year where republicans were in power and democrats were destroying the country will be the only ones hurt.

If we divest everyone from public ports, it just means that we pay more for everything. also the leases are probably worth less, so states and localities make less money. It certainly is an economic impact, we know this because we would be undoing something the market did, and the market tends toward efficiency.

Meanwhile, there are PRIVATELY owned ports and terminals, and THEY are often run by foreigners. Sometimes they are manufacturers (it might be that Toyota owns it's own terminals, for example). Would THOSE fall under a new U.S.-only rule?

What if other countries see this as an attack on trade, and impose retaliatory sanctions? That will cost us even more. Free-trade will be hurt in any case as it becomes clear that the U.S. is discriminating unreasonably against foreign companies, and other countries will hit OUR companies back hard.

It would be interesting if a deal could be worked out where DP World sold the american subsidiaries running these terminals to, say, Halliburton. Of course, economically Halliburton didn't ASK for that, probably because it doesn't fit into their field. Companies are hard-pressed to compete in their focused areas, and are finding that being smart in multiple areas is too hard. That's why all the defense lines of business got sold to defense contractors -- got to focus on core competencies.

None of this would bother democrats, they wish they could break up Walmart into little companies, and unions are more powerful when companies are smaller -- large companies swings the power back toward the management because the unions can't easily throw their workers over to a competing business.

I wish we could find a way to make all our ports american-owned and american-operated. I wish americans all wanted to buy american-made cars. I wish we built TVs and computers and video games. But I'm not going to try to impose my wishes. Reality is that this deal isn't an better or worse for us than the status quo