Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), has dropped its $18.5 bn bid to acquire Unocal, which will now in all likelihood become the property of Chevron. It seems too that several thousand jobs will be sacrificed in order to help raise the cash for the deal, jobs that would have been preserved had CNOOC’s bid been successful. China was going to put up nearly 75% of the purchase price, through both a direct subsidy and a guaranteed loan, thus obviating the need for layoffs.
In throwing in the towel, CNOOC cited “unreasonable” political opposition in the US, and especially, in the congress, which had actively intervened against the proposed sale.
Well, now our congressmen can lay claim to the prescient ability to destroy American jobs not only by ratifying bad agreements like CAFTA, but by helping to jettison good ones, like the CNOOC-Unocal deal.
Oh well. No wonder Mark Twain called the US Congress “America’s only native criminal class”…