FT Story Admits Free Trade At Heart of Port Scandal

The Financial Times published a little-noticed piece once again proving that the White House's push for the Dubai port deal is all about them putting free trade ahead of national security.

Here's the key excerpt:

"The US has been asked by several trading partners to open up its port services to international competition...The request [was] made in the World Trade Organisation Doha round of global trade negotiations...The request was made collectively last week by a group of large trading partners including the European Union, Japan and China. Such plurilateral requests, some of which have been seen by the FT, generally involve groups of rich countries – usually including the EU, the US and Japan – asking emerging market nations such as Brazil, India, Malaysia and Indonesia for access to domestic service markets such as financial services, telecoms, energy and IT. But in maritime services, the US is one of the countries on the receiving end."

So basically, Corporate america fears that if it the Dubai deal is rejected, other deals in other countries will be rejected, too. And that fear is apparently more important to the White House than the very serious security questions the Dubai deal raises.

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