Chertoff should be worrying about security, not trade

It is less than assuring to know that Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security secretary, is spending even a minute of his time protecting the status of the United States as part of a "robust global trading system."
But that was Chertoff's story Sunday as the morning news shows focused on the recent disclosure that the Bush administration has already approved terms for an Arab company to take over operations at six major American ports.
It seems to us that Chertoff, by virtue of his Homeland Security responsibilities, should be pretty close to an absolutist when it comes to protecting the country from contraband that could come into our ports. Let the Treasury Department make the argument that our status as a free-trader trumps security concerns. Chertoff should be far more skeptical than he appeared Sunday. The head of Homeland Security should be dragged kicking and screaming into this deal.
What's at stake
At issue is a $6.8 billion sale that gives a company in the United Arab Emirates control over significant operations at six major American ports. London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., the world's fourth-largest ports company, runs commercial operations at shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. It would be sold to Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company in the UAE.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, run by the Treasury Department and operating in secret, was satisfied that the security of U.S. ports -- through which millions of uninspected shipping containers move -- would not be compromised.
It is not as if the United Arab Emirates has a spotless record in protecting U.S. security. It was an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the Sept.. 11, 2001, attacks against New York and Washington.
"[The sale] is unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history," said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. And that's an understatement.
Coming off a week during which Chertoff couldn't adequately explain his department's failures to respond to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, his assurances that U.S. security will not be compromised byturning over operations of the port to a UAE company fall flat.
Part of a pattern
This administration has rarely placed the needs of the American people and American industry above the need to reassure our trading partners that they will always have an open and waiting market in the United States.
At the end of last year, President Bush ignored clear evidence that China had violated U.S. trade law in its explosive increase in common pipe exports to the United States. We argued then, as we have argued in the past, that a nation that farms out its industrial capability to other countries is playing a dangerous game. Eventually the steel industry, the pipe industry, the electronics industry, the auto and truck industry are so weakened that the nation would not be in a position to respond to the nation's military needs at a time of crisis.
If that long-range weakening of U.S. industrial might does not strike a responsive chord with the administration, we should not be surprised that the administration sees no danger in turning over its ports to an Arab emirate.
Fortunately, others do. The sale is being challenged in the courts, and the criteria used by the administration to determine that this was not a foolhardy move will be scrutinized by Congress.