Dubai Moves (PBS) [View All]

Under intense political pressure from Congress and elsewhere, Dubai Ports World announced Thursday it would transfer the operations of its U.S. ports to an American firm. Two experts assess the political and business forces shaping Thursday's announcement and what may be next in the ongoing fight over the control of American ports.

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MARGARET WARNER: For a look at today's announcement by Dubai Ports World, from the business and political perspectives, we turn to Simon Romero, a business reporter for The New York Times in Houston, and Norm Ornstein, a longtime congressional watcher for the American Enterprise Institute.

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MARGARET WARNER Is there any kind of model for that, that kind of you're -- you are shedding the operations, but you are not completely giving up total control?

SIMON ROMERO That's right.

It's -- it's -- you know, it's a strategy that, you know, American companies have often employed in their operations in politically sensitive areas of the world. It's not completely unknown. You know, Halliburton, for example, has done something like this in Iran, where they operated for many years, up until recently. They simply operated those -- those -- you know, those Iranian operations out of an offshore entity. And that could be very well what -- what the Dubai company is planning to do as well.

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You know, of the top eight terminal operations companies in the world that do these type of -- this type of work at -- at big international ports, only one is American. And that company is based out of Seattle. It is called SSA Marine. It is a family-owned company. But it's not nearly of the same scale as -- as Dubai Ports World or its competitor in bid for -- for P&O, which was a company that was controlled by Singapore's government. So, you know, American companies really began ceding these -- these terminal operations to foreign companies decades ago.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/transportation/jan-june06/hls-ports_3-9.html