What you didn’t hear about the recent rejection of an Arab take-over of U.S. ports was that this response to an Arab investment in the U.S. is a new policy.
The policy arises from poor prior decision making by the current U.S. Administration. What happened is that several Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been allowed to join the WTO with the promise that they would end their boycott of Israeli products. The Arabs have lied. Of course Arabs and Arab nations lie all the time and call it “negotiation,” “compromise” and a few other euphemisms.
The problem is that the WTO...
The problem is that the WTO is structured to deal with trade barriers
by member nations. The WTO was a brilliant and previously successful
institution, because it adjudicates trade barrier issues with years of
hearings and a final ruling that gives the injured parties the right to
reciprocal boycotts. For a decade the WTO has brilliantly negotiated
away a dozen odious trade barriers including four that forced the U.S.
Congress to drop significant major trade barriers. It has defused dozens, possibly
hundreds, of onerous trade fights.
The Arab nations should never have been allowed to join the WTO for one
simple reason: they don’t export anything but oil, terrorism and
earnings from oil sales. The WTO has no mechanism for dealing with
countries that only export oil, terrorism and money. You can’t get a
group of nations to boycott oil, terrorism or money.
The U.S. is fortunately such an important and desirable single investment vehicle that the U.S. can effectively bar Arab investment on occasion. The ban on Arab port investment is the first warning shot across the bow… either meet your WTO obligations or else.
The new solution is to restrict the import of money (read investment). It is a poor policy, but the only one we have left.