Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 6/5/2006
Understanding Today's Trade
Tanya Primiani, Christopher Sands
March 2006
Abstract
The revelation of a deal that would have placed terminal facilities at six of the largest U.S. seaports under the control of a company owned by the United Arab Emirates – and the commentary that followed – also revealed something else: how little most of us know about the transportation logistics behind today's trade.
When the subject of port facilities comes up, it is hard not to think of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, or more benignly, of Otis Redding Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. The reality of port operations in the United States and around the world leaves little chance for “watching the tide roll away” or for “wasting time.”
