Foreign Investment

DOES THE OUTSIDE WORLD present more of an opportunity or a threat? In many nations, the answer to that question is unchanging over time. But throughout our history, Americans have oscillated between both answers. And lately, fear seems to be making a comeback. The recent hysteria in Washington and across the nation over the possibility that a Dubai-based company might assume management of several U.S. port facilities is a distressing indicator of how far the pendulum has swung toward paranoia.

The healthy U.S. economy and higher interest rates are continuing to draw huge sums of foreign capital to American shores, new data indicate. Foreigners in September bought $118.1 billion more in U.S. stocks and bonds than they sold, a record, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. After subtracting Americans' purchases of foreign securities, the net capital inflow to the U.S. also was a record, at $101.9 billion, up from $89 billion in August.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cautioned Monday that foreign investors might sour on bankrolling America's mammoth trade deficits, but he expressed confidence that the economy's flexibility would cushion any fallout. The huge trade deficits the U.S. has been running up each year "cannot persist indefinitely," Greenspan warned in remarks delivered via video link to a conference in Mexico. "At some point, investors will balk at further financing." The Fed chief, who retires Jan.

The Bush administration wants to ease restrictions on overseas investment in U.S. airlines, a move that could give struggling carriers a route for fresh capital and break the logjam in transatlantic aviation talks, the Transportation Department said Wednesday. The agency said it was proposing a rule that would ease the tightly scrutinized regulation barring overseas investors from exercising control of domestic carrier operations in certain circumstances.

Some congressional leaders are seeking tighter controls on foreign investment in the U.S. after the failed Chinese bid for Unocal, but business groups say such moves could scare away much-needed foreign funds. The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will hold a hearing today to consider revamping the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an obscure inter-agency group responsible for screening foreign investments for national security concerns.

Foreign direct investment is flowing into Mexico at the slowest pace in six years, the latest piece of bad news for a weak economy that is struggling to create growth and jobs. Foreign companies plowed $7.5 billion into plants, equipment and businesses in Mexico during the first half of the year, according to recently released government figures. That's down 36% from the same period a year earlier, and it's the poorest first-half showing since 1999.

When a Dutch company sought to take over Silicon Valley Group Inc., a high-tech firm in San Jose, the ultimate vote was cast not by shareholders or executives or even the board of directors. That job went to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a secretive, little-known panel of U.S. officials that rules on whether purchases of U.S. businesses by foreign entities would impair national security and should be banned. The committee approved the $1.

Foreign investment by U.S. manufacturers almost doubled last year to $54 billion, driven by large overseas mergers and acquisitions by makers of medical devices, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other products, a study released Thursday showed. The data, released by consulting firm Deloitte, highlight the dramatic pace of globalization in the manufacturing business. U.S.

Mexican workers living in the United States sent a record $13.3 billion home last year, the first time that remittances from individuals outstripped direct foreign business investment in Latin America's second-largest economy. Statistics from the Bank of Mexico issued this week show that 2003 remittances surged 35% from 2002 levels, underscoring the increasing numbers of Mexican workers toiling in the United States as well as persistent weakness in the Mexican economy.

It came as a surprise to no one when Greenpeace held a protest here in June over Russia's failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that aims to combat global warming by requiring countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental groups all over the world have gone to battle for the measure. In the last few months, though, an unexpected set of advocates has taken up the fight here: polluters.