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We heard you loud and clear
According to a Gulf News poll, 64 per cent of readers say the DP World affair "changed their opinion for the worst" about investing in the United States. A number of businessmen told the newspaper yesterday that Arab investors would think about other destinations.
- Published: 00:00 March 12, 2006
According to a Gulf News poll, 64 per cent of readers say the DP World affair "changed their opinion for the worst" about investing in the United States. A number of businessmen told the newspaper yesterday that Arab investors would think about other destinations. The majority agreed that DP World has been forced out of the US port operations due to "racism".
President George W. Bush admitted Congress has sent the "wrong message" to the rest of the world.
We don't feel that DP World lost. It in fact won the respect of the international business community when it won the bid to acquire the British P&O Company. It gained the admiration of the political community when it showed the maturity to bow out with grace.
Nevertheless, the whole affair served as a lesson for other Arab companies who may have thought of investing in what has proved to be a hostile US atmosphere. All the free trade talk proved to be just empty rhetoric. Another irony is that the Democrats, the supporters of globalisation, were the key opponents of the deal. There must have been something else behind the sudden change of heart.
It was definitely not the concern for national security, as they fully know the Bush administration had run a meticulous review of the deal, which established it was not a threat. Was it the "Israeli element" as some have suggested? Maybe. Otherwise, why would some Congress members bombard the
DP World executive, during last week's hearing, with questions about the Arab boycott of Israel? Did they want to force the UAE to end the pan-Arab boycott of Israel in order approve the deal?
These questions need to be investigated. But the fact remains it was an ugly scene in Washington. Other foreign-owned companies run US ports but they were not Arab. That is the message.
And we got it.
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