DP World is owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is named after one of the country’s main coastal cities. It operates ports in many countries.

Charging the White House with failing to effectively prosecute the “war on terrorism,” U.S. senators Barbara Boxer of California, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, and Bill Nelson of Florida—all Democrats—introduced legislation on February 27 to “ban companies owned by foreign governments from controlling operations at U.S. ports,” according to a news release issued by Clinton.

At the same time, top officials of the Teamsters, International Longshoremen’s Association, and other trade unions organized rallies at ports at the end of February around the chauvinist theme “Goodbye Dubai.”

In a February 24 statement Teamsters president James Hoffa claimed that giving DP World access to the ports would create “a greater risk of infiltration.” He added, “We should be beefing up security at our ports.” The International Longshore and Warehouse Union took the opportunity to call for tougher enforcement of the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, including demands on the government to “thoroughly screen all vehicle drivers and riders at every port terminal gate.”

DP World had been scheduled to take over the British-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company on March 2. The latter runs cargo terminals in Baltimore; Miami; New Orleans; Newark, New Jersey; and Philadelphia, and a cruise terminal in New York. The $6.8 billion acquisition was approved March 6 by Britain’s Court of Appeals, clearing all legal hurdles in that country.

On February 27 the White House approved a proposal from DP World for a 45-day U.S. government review of the deal.

President George Bush and his allies are taking advantage of the Democratic-led anti-Dubai campaign to paint themselves as taking the moral high ground in the ruling-class debate on how to win “the war on terrorism.”

“What I find interesting is it’s OK for a British company to manage some ports, but not OK for a company from a country that is a valuable ally in the war on terror,” Bush said at the end of February. “The UAE has been a valuable partner in fighting the war on terror.”

In a March 1 editorial titled “Profiles in Hypocrisy,” Investor’s Business Daily said, “A Democratic Party that habitually accuses Bush and the GOP of racism itself engages in stereotyping and profiling of the worst kind, hanging out a sign saying, ‘Arabs need not apply.’”

While bourgeois politicians and labor officials have been pressing this chauvinist line, many dockworkers have not been taken in. After running a number of comments by New Yorkers expressing “security” concerns over going ahead with the port deal, a February 25 Washington Post article noted, “The one place in New York, curiously, where the debate sounded almost muted was on the docks.” It said that many workers “took the age-old view that a boss is a boss and a contract is greased.”
 
 
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Anti-Dubai actions hurt labor  
 
 
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