Security as Trojan Horse for Protectionism
I can't help but suspect of late that the whole Dubai ports mess signals an intent by protectionists of many stripes to hop on the security bandwagon as a way to repackage protectionism. One had but to observe the many Congressmen who up to date have shown very little interest in security issues suddenly becoming born-again hawks with on the Dubai issue. Democratic politicians who up to this point had opposed any actions targeted at Arabs or Muslims as profiling and hate-based suddenly saw the light and opposed the deal based on absolutely no other evidence than the fact the owners were from Dubai. I particularly laughed at the quote by Howard Dean lamenting that "control of the ports of the United States must be retained by American companies" (funny, since Dubai-ownership was taking over operations from a British company, not an American company). The Dubai ports deal opposition was first and foremost protectionism, begun at the behest of a domestic company that lost a bid in Miami and a number of domestic unions.
Now we can start to see this bandwagon grow. I was in the airport and saw one Congressman (Duncan Hunter, I think, but I am not positive) on CNN proposing new legislation to ban foreign ownership of any infrastructure deemed security-sensitive. He specifically mentioned power plants, which told me that he was thinking pretty expansively. This is rank protectionism, pure and simple. You can quickly imagine everything from power plants to oil companies to telephone providers - really just about anyone - coming under the auspices of a critical industry that should be all American. Just check out the case of low-cost airline upstart Virgin America to see how this security dodge is being used to protect companies from competition and prevent consumers from getting more choices and lower prices (also see WSJ$).
Xenophobia, in terms of this protectionism and the new immigrant backlash, appears to be one of the few bipartisan issues that politicians from both sides of the aisle can get behind. I fear a new McCarthyism in the works.
