[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2360-2361]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  OPPORTUNITIES FOR AMERICAN COMPANIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Westmoreland). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, this Dubai ports deal will probably go 
through even though these types of contracts should be given to 
American-owned companies. But the deal will probably be approved with 
Congress passing some meaningless, feel-good limitations or 
restrictions and increasing funding for port security.
  The deal will probably go through because, one, it involves $6.8 
billion and it is almost unheard of to stop a deal involving big money 
like that.
  Secondly, the President and the entire administration are pushing it 
as hard as they can.
  Third, the columnists and commentators are all piling on using words 
like ``overreaction, racism and bigotry.'' Even though this is name-
calling, rather than discussing the merits, most elected officials are 
going to do anything possible to avoid being called a racist or bigot 
or even that they are overreacting.
  There are legitimate national security concerns here. The United Arab

[[Page 2361]]

Emirates may be a strong ally now, but these things change. Our 
government considered Saddam Hussein as an ally all through the 1980s 
and supported him in a big way monetarily and in other ways.
  While I am concerned about national security, my main concern about 
this deal is economic. We have far too many foreign companies operating 
our ports. These are some of the best and most lucrative contracts we 
have. They should be going to American-owned companies. If we give all 
these lucrative, big-money contracts to foreign-owned businesses, most 
of the profits and most of the top jobs will go to people from those 
countries. At some point we need to start putting our own businesses 
and shareholders and workers first. After all, the first obligation of 
the U.S. Congress should be to the American people.
  It is also of some concern that this deal is not with a private 
company, but with an organization owned or controlled by the Government 
of the United Arab Emirates. Let me emphasize, I have nothing 
whatsoever against anyone from any foreign country. I am certainly not 
anti-Arab. I think it is sad that a British-owned company was running 
these port operations, and I am not anti-British. I think we should be 
friends with the Arabs and the British, and I believe we should have 
trade with all countries. But I would want foreign countries to be 
buying things from American companies and vice versa. And I would like 
to see American ports, which are some of the most important 
infrastructure assets we have, to be run and controlled but American 
companies and American citizens.
  I do not believe the Chinese or the Japanese or many other countries 
would let us run their ports. And most of these contracts to operate 
businesses on these ports are not advertised widely at all. Most are 
sweetheart, insider-type deals. I believe there are many American 
business people who would jump at the chance to do this business if 
they just knew about these opportunities.
  Let us start putting our own people first once again and stop giving 
all this port business to so many foreign companies or especially not 
to foreign governments.

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