The largest direct Arab investment in the United States has touched off inquiries into the potential danger of large-scale Arab investments, particularly in the energy sector, to American national interests, it is reported in the new issue of “Petro-Impact,” bi-monthly publication of the American Jewish Committee’s Institute of Human Relations that reports on “petrodollar influence in American affairs.
According to the publication, the government owned Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC), in acquiring the Santa Fe International Corporation of Alhambra, California, may have also gained control of a Santa Fe subsidiary, the C.F. Braun and Co., a major international engineering and construction company.
Braun, which holds security clearance from the U.S. government had worked on design and engineering projects for facilities producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.
A recent report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, quoted in Petro-Impact, concludes that “any policy aimed at preventing the sale of nuclear weapons may be difficult to carry out in the event Kuwait acquired C. F. Braun’s experience about nuclear reprocessing.”
The matter of Kuwaiti control is now being negotiated. A partial listing of other Kuwaiti direct investments in the United States since 1974 totals more than $132 million is real estate, business, and banks, including Kiaweah Island, South Carolina; Galleria in Houston, Texas; Petra Capital Corporation in New York, and the Patagonia Corporation in Arizona.
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