editorial
POLLYANNA ’20
T
he November U.S. election crystallizes a pandemic of xenophobia and anti-trade sentiment, creating scapegoats for economic and political woes, rather than the intellectual wherewithal to attack geopolitical crises. At the very time that world trade needs a post-recession push from open – and, yes, fair – trade, borders are slamming shut. The biggest investment is locally made deadbolts. It’s oversimplification, but certainly not naïve, to say that free trade is the solution to many of our problems, particularly in the project cargo industry. But this Gary Burrows requires honest relationships with those with whom you may have little else in common. It sounds easier to “level the playing field” by placing restrictions on potential customers, or removing one’s self from a trade bloc, figuring you’ll thrive isolated from the herd. But this doesn’t work in the Serengeti, and it doesn’t work in the modern, interconnected world, either. Forget borders – political divisiveness and misguided anti-trade sentiment gets in the way of our own progress. As was presented at Breakbulk Americas, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a highly successful export credit agency, is handcuffed by party politics, with US$20 billion in project cargo business hung up in the pipeline by political procedure – the inability to approve an Ex-Im Board member – because the 81-year-old agency is seen by Tea Partiers as welfare for the GEs, Caterpillars and Boeings. Never mind that they create knock-on employment for thousands of American enterprises. Of course the U.S. hasn’t cornered the market on anti-trade xenophobia.
6 BREAKBULK MAGAZINE www.breakbulk.com
Evidence the surprise of Brexit to the previous familiarity of “one Europe.” This was in part a response to the influx of foreign refugees and minorities and growing fears that multinational trade agreements don’t fully benefit local interests. In a thought piece, Mark Willis points to “a ‘new normal’ of structurally slower global trade growth” over the medium term (“Trade Pains,” page 55). The world’s markets are constantly in a state of flux, but tireless communication and negotiation is what keeps markets open and trade flowing, and allows countries to recover from destruction and chaos, as in these examples, covered in Breakbulk: • Once a world pariah, Iraq is now a burgeoning bounty for engineering, procurement and construction companies. As noted in this issue (“One Step at a Time,” page 16), the Iraqi government and the private sector are expected to spend about US$1 trillion over the next 10 years on infrastructure, housing and schools. This activity comes despite low oil prices impacting exports for Iraq, which has the world’s second-largest reserves behind Saudi Arabia. • Located in a brittle region, with a long, volatile political history of its own, Lebanon remains optimistic about tapping into its energy reserves, as Willis reports (“Hostage to Politics,” page 22) • In Issue 4, we highlighted how the lifting of sanctions against Iran has opened the Middle East’s second-largest economy to EPCs and a diversified project market (“Trading Freedom,” Breakbulk Issue 4, page 52). Poisoning your citizenry with jingoistic rants is self-fulfilling prophecy, as the resulting isolation damages a country far faster than any misperceived trade slights. As Pollyanna says in the timeless children’s book, “When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it.”
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Gary G. Burrows / +1 904 535 5460 gburrows@breakbulk.com NEWS EDITOR Carly Fields cfields@breakbulk.com HEAD DESIGNER Catherine Dorrough DESIGNER Mark Clubb REPORTERS Paul Scott Abbott VL Srinivasan Criselda Diala-McBride Mark Willis Lori Musser BREAKBULK EDITORIAL BOARD John Amos Amos Logistics
Ed Bastian
BBC Chartering
Murray Cooper
McDemott International Inc.
Etienne de Vel Fednav Belgium
Dennis Devlin DB Schenker
John Hark
Bertling Project Logistics
Dennis Mottola Bechtel Corp.
William Moyersoen
ArcelorMittal Antwerp Logistics
Albert Pegg
Antwerp Port Authority
Dirk Visser
Dynamar D.V.
Grant Wattman
Agility Project Logistics
MANAGING DIRECTOR Alli McEntyre / +353 21 477 3808 amcentyre@breakbulk.com ACCOUNT MANAGER Robert Janusauskas / +1 281 763 7231 robert@breakbulk.com SUBSCRIPTIONS To subscribe, email bb.breakbulk@adsg.info, or call from inside the US +1 855 613 8186 between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm CST. A publication of ITE Group plc Transport & Logistics business 105 Salisbury Road London NW6 6RG, UK.
ISSUE 5 / 2016