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Political Supply Chains There are 2 replies: View/Reply options

Jonathan Roy Wear Students

Political Supply Chains Original post: Mon 3/5/2012 at 10:04 PM

After reading the portion designated in the book, I felt obliged to do some further research. The book's information seemed to be lacking detail and the tone seemed inflammatory. According to the US State Department, the UAE is the United States' largest export market in the Middle East/North Africa region. US exports to the UAE were $15 billion in 2011. Total US exports for 2011 were $1.48 trillion according to census.gov. The top 15 export countries make up approximately 70 percent of US total exports. For the UAE, total imports were approximately $185 billion. The US is listed as being the third largest trade partner behind India and China according to the CIA world factbook. P&O was sold to DPW in 2006. P&O was then divested by DPW with urging from the US State Department. AIG Global was the company who purchased P&O in order to maintain American ownership of the ports.

The first thought in regards to the issue as stated by the book was that ownership and operations of the ports are already foreign owned and controlled as P&O is a UK based company. The real issue is which country we allow to own and operate these ports. The second item to note is that DPW is a government owned corporation. According to the state department, the UAE and the US enjoy friendly relations including security matters.

My opinion would be that UAE ownership of the ports would not significantly increase the threat of terrorist acts beyond the level of threats that would be seen with domestic ownership of the ports. With this being said, all necessary precautions and security measures should be in place to deal with standard threats. If the UAE were allowed to maintain ownership, it would have a significant interest in maintaining the safety of US ports to ensure delivery of critical oil field equipment.

In many contracts a terrorist act is considered a force majeure and the parties involved are allowed a reasonable addition of time to meet the requirements of the contract. These same contracts may also require the submittal of a recovery plan that highlights a company's process in the case an incident did occur. Most of these steps involve identifying alternate sources for raw goods or identifying alternate shipment methods. Overall the impact to businesses could be minimized.

Edited:Mon 3/5/2012 at 10:12 PM by Jonathan Roy Wear

Christy Lyn Brookins Students

Re: Political Supply Chains Posted: Tue 3/6/2012 at 1:20 PM, in reply to Jonathan Roy Wear

Jonathan Roy Wear wrote:

After reading the portion designated in the book, I felt obliged to do some further research. The book's information seemed to be lacking detail and the tone seemed inflammatory. According to the US State Department, the UAE is the United States' largest export market in the Middle East/North Africa region. US exports to the UAE were $15 billion in 2011. Total US exports for 2011 were $1.48 trillion according to census.gov. The top 15 export countries make up approximately 70 percent of US total exports. For the UAE, total imports were approximately $185 billion. The US is listed as being the third largest trade partner behind India and China according to the CIA world factbook. P&O was sold to DPW in 2006. P&O was then divested by DPW with urging from the US State Department. AIG Global was the company who purchased P&O in order to maintain American ownership of the ports.

The first thought in regards to the issue as stated by the book was that ownership and operations of the ports are already foreign owned and controlled as P&O is a UK based company. The real issue is which country we allow to own and operate these ports. The second item to note is that DPW is a government owned corporation. According to the state department, the UAE and the US enjoy friendly relations including security matters.

My opinion would be that UAE ownership of the ports would not significantly increase the threat of terrorist acts beyond the level of threats that would be seen with domestic ownership of the ports. With this being said, all necessary precautions and security measures should be in place to deal with standard threats. If the UAE were allowed to maintain ownership, it would have a significant interest in maintaining the safety of US ports to ensure delivery of critical oil field equipment.

In many contracts a terrorist act is considered a force majeure and the parties involved are allowed a reasonable addition of time to meet the requirements of the contract. These same contracts may also require the submittal of a recovery plan that highlights a company's process in the case an incident did occur. Most of these steps involve identifying alternate sources for raw goods or identifying alternate shipment methods. Overall the impact to businesses could be minimized.

Jonathon you brought up some very good points. Contracts are a great idea. In today's world contracts are everything. If they are not followed, they always seem to be enforced some how. If clear guidelines by the port were set (which I am sure they are) of what would happen if a port shut down than the businesses would have to be prepared for the worst. That could be from a storm or bomb just as easily as terriorism. It all boils down to business having a contingency plan.

Jami Lynn Glas Students

Re: Re: Political Supply Chains Posted: Wed 3/7/2012 at 5:11 PM, in reply to Christy Lyn Brookins

Christy Lyn Brookins wrote:

Jonathan Roy Wear wrote:

After reading the portion designated in the book, I felt obliged to do some further research. The book's information seemed to be lacking detail and the tone seemed inflammatory. According to the US State Department, the UAE is the United States' largest export market in the Middle East/North Africa region. US exports to the UAE were $15 billion in 2011. Total US exports for 2011 were $1.48 trillion according to census.gov. The top 15 export countries make up approximately 70 percent of US total exports. For the UAE, total imports were approximately $185 billion. The US is listed as being the third largest trade partner behind India and China according to the CIA world factbook. P&O was sold to DPW in 2006. P&O was then divested by DPW with urging from the US State Department. AIG Global was the company who purchased P&O in order to maintain American ownership of the ports.

The first thought in regards to the issue as stated by the book was that ownership and operations of the ports are already foreign owned and controlled as P&O is a UK based company. The real issue is which country we allow to own and operate these ports. The second item to note is that DPW is a government owned corporation. According to the state department, the UAE and the US enjoy friendly relations including security matters.

My opinion would be that UAE ownership of the ports would not significantly increase the threat of terrorist acts beyond the level of threats that would be seen with domestic ownership of the ports. With this being said, all necessary precautions and security measures should be in place to deal with standard threats. If the UAE were allowed to maintain ownership, it would have a significant interest in maintaining the safety of US ports to ensure delivery of critical oil field equipment.

In many contracts a terrorist act is considered a force majeure and the parties involved are allowed a reasonable addition of time to meet the requirements of the contract. These same contracts may also require the submittal of a recovery plan that highlights a company's process in the case an incident did occur. Most of these steps involve identifying alternate sources for raw goods or identifying alternate shipment methods. Overall the impact to businesses could be minimized.

Jonathon you brought up some very good points. Contracts are a great idea. In today's world contracts are everything. If they are not followed, they always seem to be enforced some how. If clear guidelines by the port were set (which I am sure they are) of what would happen if a port shut down than the businesses would have to be prepared for the worst. That could be from a storm or bomb just as easily as terriorism. It all boils down to business having a contingency plan.

I agree with Jonathan, he brought a lot of really good points to the table. I feel that our businesses could really benifit from the UAE taking over the ports that were ran by P&O. I dont think we should have any more fear of one over the other. If there are proceedures and policies in place along with recovery plans, I feel the businesses supply chains will be able to function and recover if the ports were to shut down.