The New Protectionists

opinionjournal ^ | March 10, 2006 | WSJ

[groanup]

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The New Protectionists - How to create a real security crisis.

Friday, March 10, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Dubai Ports World finally threw in the kaffiyah on its American operations yesterday, agreeing to sell them "to a U.S. entity." We hope that entity turns out to be Halliburton, if only for the torment that would cause certain eminences on Capitol Hill.

Dubai Ports was susceptible to this political stampede because it was an Arab-owned company buying port operations, which Democrats have played up as uniquely vulnerable. But this is also the second such mugging of a foreign investor in recent months, following last year's demagoguery against a Chinese company's bid to buy Unocal, a middling American oil company. If Members of Congress want a real security crisis--a financial security crisis--they'll keep this up.

What's especially dangerous here is that we're seeing the re-emergence of the "national security" protectionists. They were last seen in the late 1980s, when Japan in particular was the target of a political foreign-investment panic. The Japanese were buying Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center, and so America was soon going to be a colony of Tokyo. A Japanese bid for Fairchild Semiconductor of Silicon Valley was seen as a threat to American defense. Those fears seem laughable now. But here we go again, with new targets of anxiety.

snip

[unseen]

It is our tax dollars that are paying for you to have the plant in the first place and to be able to hire the workers and pay their wages and benefits. It is because the F-16 protects us that we as a nation agree to pay for your plant. If you take that trust and abuse it to satisfy your own greed than as I said before it would be better if your plant never existed. we could have instead invested with a person that understood the concept of national defense, and protection of the nation's citizens and a person who would have put aside his own greed for the benefit of that nation. There is a very clear line between selfishness and individualism.

[mississippi red-neck]

Dunno. How important is it to me to keep my F-16 assembly-line running?

Foul. Foul. No fair .

I asked you first.

This is exactly what unseen and I are trying to find out from you. Just how far are you willing to go to keep your F-16 line running?

This is what my "silly hypothetical " as you called it, and that is your right, was meant to find out.

Now you want me to answer it for you. Now that is silly.

The fact that we are selling our latest version of the F-16 to Arab states that refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist and are sworn to her destruction is not "silly". This includes Egypt.

That we pressure Israel to reduce her borders and limit her time to respond to a conventional attack and then sell our latest model tanks and F-16 to her enemies thereby possibly shifting the balance of power on land and in the air to her foes is nuts.

These fanatics don't need any encouragement to attack her and if they do there is going to be one hell of lot more economic wise and otherwise at stake for the U.S. and the world than your F-16 line.

[unseen]

It is not an either/or proposition. We can have trade and we can have independence. Since the founding of the colonies we have had trade with tariffs. It worked fine for hundreds of years. The depression was not caused by not having free trade. The RECORD tariffs on goods did make it worse but it did not cause it. Free trade would not have stopped Hitler from gaining power. Hitler gained power because the Versailles treaty was written to punish Germany for WW1 and to make Germany pay. The only reason we went the free trade route was to contain the spread of Soviet communism. The soviet union is dead. So should free trade be. May it rest in peace.

[unseen]

It's not a US company, its an English company again. Do you all see a pattern forming. Looks like a backdoor approach.

[jec41]

it has to be? Why? since when did our trade agreements EVER give the US the advantage?

I don't know? We have 50% of the entire world's wealth. What would satisfy you?

[jec41]

it has to be? Why? since when did our trade agreements EVER give the US the advantage?

I don't know? We have 50% of the entire world's wealth. What would satisfy you?

[unseen]

If you think we fought the American revolution and wrote the Constitution for free trade your history teacher was not very good.

[unseen]

Keeping that 50% American. It is through our economic as well as our military power that we can keep our freedoms. The American experience is unique in the history of the world. We were and are the only country that limits the power of government to a fixed list reserving all other powers to the people. It has never been done before and if we fail it may never be done again. No one says the rest of the world can not become wealthier just let's keep the percentage in America's favor.

[unseen]

No the Free traders line of BS that I was replying too was this (try to keep up):

You do realize, don't you that the tax would still be passed on to you? Companies do NOT pay taxes. Every tax imposed by our government is passed directly on to the consumer. Say we get rid of Chinese merchandise and I have to pay $40 for a tshirt instead of $25. Does that raise my standard of living? Did protectionism help the average "citizen" of the Soviet Union?

[jec41]

Yep, the Arab states have no power. I remember the OPEC embargo, didn't hurt a bit.

[rcocean]

Good post.

Too bad all the bumper sticker posters and economic illiterates won't understand it.

[hedgetrimmer]

before we fought that old war The American Revolution for free trade

Another person who must have been taught US history by all those communist and leftist professors and teachers who have infiltrated our school system.

[oceanview]

right, only port operations and defense contractors make money - all other possible US investments - lose money.

right.

[hedgetrimmer]

We might as well hand our keys over to the ChiComs.

Too late, already been done starting with Nixon and Henry Kissinger, on to the Clintons and the Bush family. And let's not forget Jimmy Carter's contribution, the Panama Canal.

[oceanview]

could be, not sure. is CFIUS looking into it? I doubt it.

[hedgetrimmer]

We have 50% of the entire world's wealth

Better a nation predicated on individual rights than a nation predicated on socialism communism or totalitarianism, don't you think?

[jec41]

CFIUS does not approve deals. They review and approve or disapprove security measures. If security is not adequate the deal cannot go through until it is corrected.

[hedgetrimmer]

They review and approve or disapprove security measures

That leaves us wondering. Who approved the deal?

[unseen]

Yeah and instead of Carter doing what was necessary he told us to wear a sweater. We have had 35 years to wean ourselves from big oil but free trade has provided us with cheap oil and has fueled our addiction. Brazil is an ethanol power house while we sit and drink from the oil pump. Japan and Germany are leap frogging us in the solar market and here we sit at the oil pump. Even France is going ahead of us in the nuclear energy industry yet here we sit at the pump. We are more dependent on the Middle east today then we were in 1970's due to free trade.

[unseen]

CFIUS not sure do they ever look into anything....I thought they were a rubber stamp.