But irrational fear still carries the day. Consider the ports deal. Roughly 1 percent to 2 percent of containerized cargo in the United States is checked, which renders our ports sitting ducks. In "America: Still Unprepared—Still In Danger," former Sens. Warren Rudman and Gary Hart observed that "nineteen men wielding box-cutters forced the United States to do to itself what no adversary could ever accomplish: a successful blockade of the U.S. economy. If a surprise terrorist attack were to happen tomorrow involving the sea, rail, or truck transportation systems that carry millions of tons of trade to the United States each day, the response would likely be the same — a self-imposed global embargo."

Yet, we reject the world experts in port security — and one of America's staunchest allies in the Middle East — because the company is based in Dubai.

The Unocal Corp. oil deal was equally bizarre. Yes, China has a growing thirst for oil that will only increase over time. Yet our greatest concern is that they are communist?

No one seemed overly concerned about that last week when Congress lifted its debt ceiling. Much of that debt — now totaling more than $2.19 trillion — is owned by the central banks of Japan and China, and private investors abroad. America has to borrow about $2 billion a day from foreigners to finance its huge trade deficits.

While most business agreements don't get the type of public scrutiny, and frankly, hysteria, that the ports and Unocal deals did, the glaring truth is that in a global economy, our economic and national security interests have become increasingly intertwined. Not only do foreign interests own a growing number of U.S. firms, they own a sizable share of this nation's debt. Somehow, we ugly and mortgaged-to-the-gills Americans have got to come to grips with that reality.

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Marjorie Cortez, a free-trader at heart, is a Deseret Morning News editorial writer. E-mail her at marjorie@desnews.com.