Gulftainer port deal shows tide has turned for UAE business in US | Arab News

Gulftainer port deal shows tide has turned for UAE business in US | Arab News:

Time was ultimately on the side of UAE-based port operators in their efforts to break into the US business. A $600 million deal between Gulftainer, the Sharjah-based ports group that ranks among the largest independent terminal operators in the world, and the authorities in Delaware, on the US Atlantic seaboard, sets the seal on a successful campaign of persistence and industrial logic over political prejudice and opportunism.

In 2006, the attempt by DP World to buy the US ports then owned by British shipping group P&O fell foul of a well-orchestrated political campaign featuring none other than Hillary Clinton, then senator for New York where some of the port facilities were located. In the febrile atmosphere of the time, when memories of 9/11 were still intense and the war in Iraq was at its height, Clinton argued that ownership of US ports by a UAE government entity would be a threat to national security.

Her efforts were successful in so far as the US ports were eventually excluded from the global transaction and sold separately to private equity groups. Once bitten, DP World has never since looked seriously at adding US ports to its global portfolio.