"Our marine terminals are invaluable commerce infrastructure, not only to our country but also for the many foreign manufacturers who sell primarily in the U.S. market"
About this Quote
"Marine terminals" sounds like a dry, technocratic phrase, which is exactly the point: it launders a political argument through infrastructure. Rohrabacher isn’t praising ports for their romance or even their strategic vulnerability; he’s framing them as "invaluable commerce infrastructure" to make investment, deregulation, or security funding feel non-ideological, like fixing a bridge. The word "invaluable" does heavy lifting, pre-empting questions about cost, labor conflict, environmental impact, or local disruption by implying there’s no serious alternative.
The twist is the second clause: "not only to our country but also for the many foreign manufacturers who sell primarily in the U.S. market". That’s an intentional widening of the beneficiary list, and it’s doing two contradictory jobs at once. On one hand, it’s an argument for pragmatism in a globalized supply chain: American consumption depends on international production, so ports are national assets even when the goods aren’t. On the other, it’s a subtle pressure tactic: if these terminals serve foreign manufacturers, then the U.S. can claim leverage and justification for controlling access, setting terms, or hardening security.
Contextually, it fits the post-NAFTA, post-9/11 era when ports were debated as both economic chokepoints and security front lines, with periodic flare-ups over congestion, union negotiations, and foreign ownership controversies. Rohrabacher’s phrasing tries to collapse those tensions into a single, businesslike truth: the terminals are indispensable, so politics should get out of the way - except where politics can extract advantage.
The twist is the second clause: "not only to our country but also for the many foreign manufacturers who sell primarily in the U.S. market". That’s an intentional widening of the beneficiary list, and it’s doing two contradictory jobs at once. On one hand, it’s an argument for pragmatism in a globalized supply chain: American consumption depends on international production, so ports are national assets even when the goods aren’t. On the other, it’s a subtle pressure tactic: if these terminals serve foreign manufacturers, then the U.S. can claim leverage and justification for controlling access, setting terms, or hardening security.
Contextually, it fits the post-NAFTA, post-9/11 era when ports were debated as both economic chokepoints and security front lines, with periodic flare-ups over congestion, union negotiations, and foreign ownership controversies. Rohrabacher’s phrasing tries to collapse those tensions into a single, businesslike truth: the terminals are indispensable, so politics should get out of the way - except where politics can extract advantage.
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
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