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While port security remains one of our single greatest vulnerabilities, it makes little sense to give operational control of our ports to a foreign nation without first doing proper investigations.

We wouldn't turn over our customs service or our border patrol to a foreign government. We shouldn't turn over the ports of the United States, either.

And let us be frank, the security threats that emanate from our ports come from foreign cargo.

Our ports are a vital link in national security and it is extremely dangerous to be considering their sale to the United Arab Emirates government.

Our ports are owned by local governments who are responsible for the ports. It is the Coast Guard and Customs that provide security. The federal government will never outsource our security.

We have no desire to continue a sanctions war, trading blows.

Old ideas of not trading because 'they won't open their markets to us' miss the entire point of allowing goods to be imported into the United States - because we want and need them and because someone here believes that the good or service received in exchange for our dollars creates value for them.

Let me say at the outset that I do not reflexively oppose international trade.

Our trade opens to all the world.