Free Ports in the Liberal Imagination: Evidence from The Economist and The New York Times, 1845–2010

ABSTRACT

This essay relies on an extensive database of articles from The Economist and The New York Times to track the contours of free port debate over time. A secondary aim (exploiting this database) is to map more fully the spatial and chronological bounds of the free port. A third, more tentative goal is to gauge how the free port functioned and why it became outmoded by the late twentieth century, as discourse about the free port gave way to a wider array of institutions such as the export processing zone and the special economic zone. Ultimately, we argue that the free port is best seen as a concomitant of Euro-American imperialism, whether viewed from the metropole or the colonies.

KEYWORDS:

• Free ports
• free trade zones
• special economic zones
• decolonisation
• imperialism
• liberalism

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the participants of the Helsinki conference on the ‘Global History of Free Ports’ as well as Dara Orenstein for her insightful comments on this article. In addition, they would like to thank the Dean of Students Office and the EU Center of California for funding a research assistantship for Siena Hinshelwood, which allowed her to compile the databases on which this research rests.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Robert M. Smith, “Bribe Requests in Haiti Alleged” (New York Times, March 3, 1976); see also ‘Corrections,’ (New York Times, March 5, 1976). In the 1970s, Haiti (and other Caribbean isles) were touted as a venue for US investors while feared as dystopian realm of government by bribery. In fact, political economy in such places was profoundly conditioned by proximity to the enormous US market. See Coppin, “Recent U.S. Policies,” 55–8, 65, 68; for a detailed, if nakedly anti-Haitian, account of the free port project, see Gilder and Hagger, “A Simple Proposal,” 329–44.

2 Robert M. Smith, “Bribe Requests in Haiti Alleged” (New York Times, March 3, 1976).

3 “South of Miami” (The Economist, April 4, 1959).

4 For a comparison between the SEZ and the free port, see Tazzara, “Capitalism and the Special Economic Zone, 1590–2014”; for an economistic examination of the device, see Moberg, The Political Economy of Special Economic Zones; for historical perspectives on the SEZ, see Easterling, Extrastatecraft; Neveling, “Export Processing Zones”; Neveling, “The Global Spread of Export Processing Zones”; Ogle, “Archipelago capitalism”; Maruschke, Portals of Globalization; Orenstein, Out of Stock; Slobodian, Crack-Up Capitalism.

5 Between 2000 and 2014, The Economist mentions the term for historical free ports (Hong Kong, Odessa, and Danzig) almost as much as for contemporary ones (Sabang, Chabahar, Mombasa, Penang, and Luxembourg).

6 See the Appendix for collection and coding procedures. The database will be made available online on Tazzara’s faculty website.

7 Quote from Zevin, Liberalism at Large, 6; for the NYT, see Beckert, The Monied Metropolis.

8 The present article offers a textual analysis of the newspapers, but it is worth noting that there was also an important visual component to the free port phenomenon in the form of advertisements: perhaps such visual elements will form the basis for a future study, enriching and expanding the findings presented here.

9 See Fletcher, “The Suez Canal and World Shipping, 1869–1914”; Lindert and Williamson, “Does Globalization Make the World More Unequal?”; Solar, “Opening to the East: Shipping Between Europe and Asia, 1770–1830”; Pascali, “The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade, and Economic Development.”

10 This estimate comes from Manuel María Gutiérrez in 1830, supplemented by Tazzara and Orenstein. Not all the free ports established in the eighteenth century were still operating as such in the nineteenth: hence the uncertainty. See Aglietti, “Of the Prodigious Virtue of Every Free Port”; Tazzara, “Managing Free Trade,” 497; Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno, 233; Orenstein, Out of Stock, 112.

11 Masson, Ports francs, 218.

12 For post-independence commercial rivalry in the region, see Joaquín, “Actividades económicas”; and Díaz, Relaciones Comerciales’ see, too, the editors’ introduction to this volume as well the article by Giulia Delogu.

13 This surprising finding is probably an artifact of the coding procedures used for this paper (which codes regional trading blocs such as the European Union as ‘free zones’, even though they are quite distinct from our main emphasis here). See the online appendix for more information.

14 “The Great Filibuster” (New York Times, September 17, 1860).

15 The free port was a consistent tool of policy for Walker, who imagined marrying free trade to an extension of the Southern slavocracy. Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny, 195.

16 “Nicaragua—Special Envoy of General Pierce’s Successor to Mr. Clay” (New York Times, July 4, 1852). The dispute between Britain and the US was also entangled with larger disputes over transshipment routes – disputes that would finally end with the construction of the Panama Canal: Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny, 222ff.

17 See section 5 below.

18 “The Legacy of the War in the Balkans” (The Economist, March 29, 1930).

19 See Hametz, Making Trieste Italian, 49–60.

20 New York Times, October 22, 1852, “American Industry”, 3. Dixon went on to note how the contemporary free port at Perth Amboy likewise threatened the interests of New York. ‘These collisions between the States, resulted in the abandonment of all attempts to protect American labor under the confederation’, he explained: turning it into an argument for the Federal Constitution.

21 “China” (The Economist, September 15, 1928).

22 “Foreign Correspondence” (The Economist, February 19, 1848); such also appears to have been true for Moeara Rampeh in Sumatra: “Miscellaneous” (The Economist, August 28, 1847); see, too, the discussion of British strategy in the Caribbean in the editors’ introduction to this volume. Koen Stapelbroek, in his article in this volume, pushes back against this common interpretation of the Dutch free ports in Asia.

23 See the article by Peter Borschberg in this volume as well as Tazzara, “Ports and Free Ports in the Old World”; for key orientations in a vast historiography, see Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean; Reid, Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia.

24 “Indonesia Plans Free Port to Cut Malaysia Trade” (New York Times, October 11, 1963); Seth S. King, “Jakarta Hostility Unchanged” (New York Times, January 11, 1964).

25 Philip B. Shabecoff, “30-Mile Canal across Thailand is Envisioned by a Consortium” (New York Times, December 11, 1961), 51; Chow Kwanyun, “Kra Canal” (The Economist, February 8, 1964). See the ‘Thai Canal’ Wikipedia page for the later permutations of the project.

26 M. S. Handler, “War Goods Reach East via Trieste” (New York Times, July 18, 1951); see, too, Michael L. Hoffman, “Some ECA Cargoes cannot be Traced” (December 26, 1948), 31. The most spectacular case saw tanks being shipped from Antwerp to Egypt: Benjamin Welles, “Britain Stiffens on Mideast Arms” (New York Times, January 3, 1956). For the peculiar position of Trieste, see Trampus, Free Ports of the World, 146–157; Querci et al., Internazionalità e storicità del porto franco di Trieste, as well as the editors’ introduction to this volume.

27 M. S. Handler, “War Goods Reach East via Trieste” (New York Times, July 18, 1951).

28 Thomas F. Brady, “Free-Zone Trade to Reds Doubled in Antwerp since Stalin’s Death” (New York Times, March 1, 1954).

29 Maruschke, Portals of Globalization, 126.

30 Nowhere was this clearer than in the scramble for oil: see e.g. “Free Ports Sought by U.S. in Lebanon” (New York Times, February 10, 1945).

31 “Austria” (The Economist, June 15, 1850); “Austria” (The Economist, March 22, 1851).

32 “Notices and Reports” (The Economist, March 18, 1871).

33 “Bosnia in the Congress” (New York Times, June 29, 1878); “Deliberations of the Congress” (New York Times, July 10, 1878); “How to Promote British Trade with the Markets” (The Economist, February 13, 1886); see too, “Batoum” (The Economist, July 10, 1886); “The Closing of Batoum” (New York Times, July 10, 1886); “‘Shell’ Transport and Trading Company, Limited” (The Economist, September 24, 1904).

34 Russia exhibited similar behavior in Port Arthur/Dalian – yet another festering inter-imperial problem, especially in the years before the Russo-Japanese War and in the aftermath of World War II: see e.g. “England’s Victory in China” (New York Times, February 10, 1898); “China’s Grants to Russia” (New York Times, March 26, 1898); “The Partition of China” (New York Times, March 27, 1898); “Another Chinese Free Port” (New York Times, March 13, 1899); “Russian Diplomacy in China” (The Economist, June 9, 1900); Tillman Durdin, “Envoys Board U.S. Ship off Tokyo” (New York Times, August 27, 1945); “Russo-Chinese Pact” (The Economist, September 1, 1945); “Another Russian ‘No’” (New York Times, September 4, 1947).

35 “The Black Sea” (The Economist, October 5, 1912). The Economist was prone to exaggerate the extent to which imperial rivalries were driven by access to markets; according to Osterhammel, the pursuit of foreign resources, while of sporadic interest throughout the nineteenth century, came to be seen as a compelling national interest only around the turn of the twentieth century: The Transformation of the World, 432–3.

36 “The War and its Objects” (The Economist, March 13, 1915); in addition to the following citations, see the ring of free ports in the old Ottoman territory: “The Turkish Treaty” (The Economist, May 15, 1920).

37 “Polish Developments” (The Economist, July 23, 1921); “Roumania” (The Economist, January 1, 1927); “Czechoslovakia” (The Economist, February 26, 1927).

38 “Fiume and Alternative Ports” (The Economist, May 3, 1919); see too “Europe’s Troubles and the League’s Position” (The Economist, September 15, 1923); “Hungary” (The Economist, March 5, 1927); “The Legacy of the War in the Balkans” (The Economist, March 29, 1930).

39 “The Claims of Greece” (The Economist, November 16, 1912).

40 Paul Underwood, “Greek Free Port Aids Yugoslavia” (New York Times, April 16, 1961); see too “The Greco-Turkish War and Greek Finance” (The Economist, September 2, 1922); “Greece” (The Economist, February 10, 1923); “The Progress of Jugo-Slavia” (The Economist, October 11, 1924); W. H. Lawrence, “Idea of Free Port at Salonika Gains” (New York Times, April 17, 1947). Bulgaria was not so fortunate: it was still lobbying for a free zone in Thessaloniki in 1973; see “The Colonels will Need Quite a New Complexion” (The Economist, June 23, 1973). For a scholarly account of Thessaloniki and its free port, see Srougo, “The Fall of the Balkan Port” 63–72.

41 See Pennell, Morocco, 195–8.

42 ^“Germans See U.S. As Shipping Enemy” (The New York Times, February 16, 1919); “Sweden Lays Plans for Baltic Trade” (The New York Times, November 19, 1919); for another free port, see the case of Zeebrugge in Belgium: “A Proposed Belgian Free Port” (The Economist, October 11, 1924).

43 See “Finland” (The Economist, November 8, 1919); “Finland” (The Economist, August 14, 1920); “Finland” (The Economist, January 15, 1921).

44 Later, during the period of Nazi domination, Germany erected free ports as smoke screens for its hegemony in Lithuania, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Italy. ‘There are already reports of Germany’s intention to transform it into a “free port”’, remarked The Economist about Trieste: ‘The Triestini will know exactly what that means’: “Balkan ‘New Order’” (The Economist, May 24, 1941); see too “Big Fleet On Will” (New York Times, March 23, 1939); “Germany, Poland, Lithuania” (The Economist, April 1, 1939); “Trade Alliance with Roumania” (The Economist, April 1, 1939); “Baltic Trio” (The Economist, June 10, 1939); “Envoy Sees Hitler” (The New York Times, August 29, 1939); “Latvia Gets Delay on Moscow Terms” (The New York Times, October 3, 1939).

45 “The Oregon Territory” (The Economist, June 6, 1846). For Nicaragua and Honduras, see section 3 above.

46 “The War Cloud over Abyssinia” (June 29, 1935).

47 “Morocco’s New Worries” (The Economist, December 5, 1959). See Stuart, The International City of Tangier; and Hettstedt, Die internationale Stadt Tanger; as well as the discussion of Tangiers in the editors’ introduction to this volume.

48 “The International Relations of The Panama Canal” (The Economist, December 24, 1881). Some Britons had dreamt of constructing a free port in the region since the very early eighteenth century: Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy, 84–87.

49 John S. Radosta, “Colon Free Zone Gives Business Forward Base in Latin America” (New York Times, April 1, 1957); “Panama Canal Troubles” (The Economist, September 1, 1956). Interestingly, the Colón Free Zone emerged as Panama was becoming less strategically important to the US: see Maurer and Yu, The Big Ditch, 223ff.

50 See e.g. “Commercial and Miscellaneous News” (The Economist, November 14, 1874).

51 Advertisement “The Suez Canal” (New York Times, June 21, 1966); “Suez” (The Economist, April 2, 1966); “Price of Peace” (The Economist, March 9, 1974), Issue 6811, 51; “Suez will be Open this June” (The Economist, April 5, 1975), Issue 6867, 79. See Huber, “Connecting Colonial Seas.”

52 “From Canada” (New York Times, January 1, 1861); “The New Channels of Trade with the Western and Central States of North America” (The Economist, September 13, 1862). The Great Lakes had already been demilitarised in an agreement from 1817 (outstanding border issues were settled in 1842). Canada moved to develop its commercial infrastructure, in part to defend against possible US encroachment. Even so, these free ports had a brief existence, beset by smuggling as well as a rapid change in economic context with the onset of the US Civil War: evidently, the free ports were shut down in 1866. See Stewart, The American Response to Canada, 62–73; Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World, 479; McDougall, “Two Centuries of Settlement.”

53 “Batoum’s Boom” (New York Times, December 29, 1889). The city was like the American West in another way: ‘Petroleum has made Batoum, and petroleum is its life blood’. In Vladivostok, Russia further cemented its reputation for clawing back free port privileges despite international fantasies of open access: “Interview with the Russian Minister for Trade” (The Economist, February 22, 1908); “The Third Duma” (The Economist, February 13, 1909): see as well the article by Turbin in this volume.

54 Advertisement “The State of Amazonas” (New York Times, January 19, 1969). For the context – which also had military dimensions, stemming from the dictatorship of Castelo Branco – see Despres, Manaus, 29–31; Schmink and Wood, Contested Frontiers, 46–50; for the internationalisation of Brazilian capitalism, see Seráfico and Seráfico, “A Zona Franca de Manaus,” 104–6.

55 See too Paul L. Montgomery, “A Duty-Free Port Thrives in Brazil” (New York Times, December 18, 1967); Joseph Novitski, “Boom, Bust and Now Boom Again in Amazon Town” (New York Times, July 1, 1969); Nona Baldwin Brown, “Amazon Hotel” (New York Times, February 27, 1983).

56 George R. Dyer, “Establishment of Free Ports Urged as an Aid to Business” (New York Times, April 22, 1934).

57 “A Proposed Belgian Free Port” (The Economist, October 11, 1924).

58 As quoted in Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno, 257. In fact, talk of turning Britain into a general free port had emerged in England during the Walpole years of the 1720s and 1730 and (never having died) again in the 1780s: Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy, 51–3, 221–2. See also the discussion of Smith as well as the remarks about bonded warehouses in the editors’ introduction to this volume.

59 Edward Atkinson of Boston ‘frankly acknowledges’ how England had become a great free port and made itself the financial center of the world. “The Foreign Trade of The United States” (The Economist, December 13, 1884).

60 “The Cost of The Abyssinian Expedition” (The Economist, March 14, 1868). The Economist was not opposed to colonial expeditions in the abstract, but only vexed by the relationship between costs and benefits.

61 J. M. K. [John Maynard Keynes?], “Bankers, Brokers, and Shippers” (The Economist, February 6, 1909).

62 “Grand Banquet to Mr. Cobden at Cadiz” (The Economist, November 28, 1846).

63 “House of Lords” (The Economist, June 4, 1853).

64 “The Franco-Belgian Incident” (The Economist, April 17, 1869). Schumpeter judged Laveleye’s work as an economist as ‘neither distinguished nor distinctive and shows that so far as analytic technique is concerned he did not stray far from the beaten path.’ Indeed, one might say that free port advocacy in this period was the hallmark not of the great economists but of more popular economistic discourse, not unlike the contemporary phenomenon of special economic zones. See Schumpeter, The History of Economic Analysis, 788 n. 18.

65 “France” The Economist, August 29, 1891.

66 Ironically, the seventeenth-century free port was closely linked to issues of religious toleration: see Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno, chaps. 1 and 2.

67 “Foreign and Colonial” (The Economist, September 11, 1847). For a brief resume of these debates, see Miró, “Un Proyecto Economico,” 617–23.

68 “Literature” (The Economist, April 21, 1866).

69 Ibid.

70 “The Congo” (The Economist, March 8, 1884).

71 https://www.reaganfoundation.org›media›128652›farewell.pdf, Accessed August 1, 2023. We are grateful to Dara Orenstein for this reference. Italics ours.

72 See e.g. https://www.barndoorstrategy.com/brexit/customs-reform/, Accessed August 27, 2020. We are grateful to Koen Stapelbroek for this reference.

73 “The Adherence of Hamburg to the Zollverein” (The Economist, September 8, 1849).

74 Ashworth, Customs and Excise, 37, 231, 300–01, 307–08; Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno, 105–6, 243; see Orenstein, Out of Stock, 70, 77. For a broader discussion of the bonded warehouse (and dock system), see the editors’ introduction to this volume.

75 After the Great War, when the Victorian era was shimmering into the memory-haze, one correspondent fondly recalled London’s status as a free port: G.S. Pawle, “Deflation and Industry,” (The Economist, May 7, 1921).

76 Thus, Richard S. Thoman gives it pride of place in his oft-cited Free Ports and Foreign-Trade Zones.

77 “The Commercial Policy of the German Empire” (The Economist, July 29, 1848).

78 “The Adherence of Hamburg to the Zollverein” (The Economist September 8, 1849).

79 “The Adherence of Hamburg to the Zollverein” (The Economist September 8, 1849).

80 “The Adherence of Hamburg to the Zollverein” (The Economist September 8, 1849). It is thus amusing to find The Economist in 1877 publishing a memorandum tendered by the Hamburg interests, arguing that protectionism in Germany was fully compatible with the interests of Hamburg as a free port. “Free Trade and Free Ports in Germany” (The Economist, November 17, 1877).

81 Tazzara, “Capitalism and the Special Economic Zone,” 88–90.

82 “About Hamburg” (New York Times, November 16, 1866).

83 Quoted by Stein, “Interessenkonflikte,” 56; see too “German Trade,” (The Economist, October 13, 1888).

84 “The Trade and Shipping of Hamburg” (The Economist, November 16, 1912). This was also the conclusion arrived at to some surprise by Thoman, Free Ports and Foreign-Trade Zones.

85 See Borowsky, “Hamburg und der Freihafen,” 124–6. For Hamburg’s commercial development and ties to German imperialism, see Ferguson, Paper and Iron, chap. 1; Böhm, Überseehandel und Flottenbau; Grimmer-Solem, Learning Empire; and Wagner, “Nicht mehr als eine ferne Bekannte?”; see also the editors’ introduction to this volume.

86 Between 1845 and 1944, The Economist offered 26 articles on the free port of Hamburg, versus 13 for Trieste. A possible free port at Salonica was discussed extensively (28 articles), not for its economic possibilities, but for its role in diffusing the international tensions associated with World War I.

87 “France” (The Economist, August 21, 1897); similar motives were at work in Copenhagen: “Copenhagen as a Free Port” (The Economist, March 2, 1895).

88 “Bordeaux as a Rubber Centre” (The Economist, February 6, 1909).

89 “Would Free Port Help Commerce” (New York Times, October 15, 1913). The article also cites Rotterdam and Bremen as models, but Hamburg received the lion’s share of reflection, in this piece as in others: see e.g. William H. Douglas, “Will Free Port Solve New York’s Shipping Problem” (The New York Times, November 16, 1913); “Free Trade Zone to be Ready November. 1” (New York Times, August 19, 1936); Charles E. Egan, “Trade Zone Gross was $130,000 during Year of Private Operations” (New York Times, May 7, 1939).

90 Thomas F. Conroy, “Importers Favor Trade Zone Bills” (New York Times, May 9, 1948).

91 E.g. “Free Ports vs. Free Trade” (The New York Times, April 30, 1918); A. G. McCourt, “Free Port for New York” December 29, 1932.

92 “Would Free Port Help Commerce” (New York Times, October 15, 1913).

93 “Constantinople” (The Economist, July 5, 1913).

94 “Constantinople” (The Economist, July 5, 1913).

95 For colonial India, for example, only other colonial ports as well as metropolitan British practices served as models; an 1834 debate about making Bombay a free port revolved around Calcutta, Madras, Singapore, Canton, and Cape Town (as well as the British home ports). By contrast, independent India modeled its first free port at Kandla on the US Foreign Trade Zones, and later developments in Kandla’s policies on examples in Taiwan, Ireland, Korea, Singapore, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Panama, and Sri Lanka: see Maruschke, Portals of Globalization, 30, 42–3, 53, 81–3, 95; as well as her article in this volume.

96 Orenstein’s analysis of warehouses as ‘reservoirs of circulation’ is useful: see Out of Stock, 43, 85.

97 Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis; Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World, 278, 719–24; Borrowsky, “Hamburg und der Freihafen” 116–7, 121–2. The spread of telegraphy facilitated smaller stockpiling in some markets, although the centralisation effects of the railroad probably outweighed the dispersion effects of the telegraph.

98 The bonded warehouse was ‘control intensive’ in comparison to the free zone: in a bonded warehouse, the advantages of tariff remission had to be weighed against the higher costs of bureaucratic oversight. Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno, 243; Osterhammel, chap. 11, esp. 619–22; Orenstein, Out of Stock, passim: e.g. 10, 121, 158; see too the discussion of bonded warehouses in the editors’ introduction to this volume.

99 Advertisement “Kingston Free Zone” (The Economist, March 24, 1979).

100 For another example of bad history, see the elision between Hanseatic free cities and free ports: “Medieval Precedents Recalled in Proposal to Set Up Free City” (New York Times, November 28, 1958).

101 Minoletti, I porti franchi, 62: see the editors’ introduction to this volume for a discussion of this passage as well as the work of Dermigny; for other examples of thin historicism, see also such works as Thoman, Free Ports and Foreign-Trade Zones and McCalla, “The Geographical Spread of Free Zones.”

102 What Osterhammel says of the printing press is applicable to the free port as well: “The Distinction between West and East here is, as so often, of little relevance”: The Transformation of the World, 38.

103 Orenstein, Out of Stock, 95, 246.

104 “Ireland Pushes Bid for Dollars” (New York Times, March 12, 1958); see too George Hornes, “Ireland Mounts Economics Drive” (New York Times, April 28, 1958); “Competition from Shannon” (The Economist, November 14, 1959); “An Irish Innovation” (The Economist, April 9, 1977); “Those New Industries” (The Economist, January 24, 1981). Shannon Airport is sometimes called the first export processing zone – not without the problems of priority and significance, since the era of decolonisation saw many analogous schemes for promoting industry: see Neveling, “Export Processing Zones,” 75–7; Orenstein, Out of Stock, 216–17; Maruschke, Portals of Globalization, 89.

105 “Palestine” (The Economist, July 10, 1948); see too “Testament of Bernadotte” (The Economist, September 25, 1948). He also proposed making Haifa an international free port (primarily for oil piped in from Iraq).

106 “Airwork Leaves the North Atlantic” (The Economist, December 17, 1955); “Dutch Open Europe’s 2nd Air Free Port” (New York Times, February 28, 1957).

107 “Sri Lanka” (The Economist, June 23, 1979); Advertisement [Greater Colombo Economic Commission], (The Economist, May 24, 1980); “Growing Pains” (The Economist, August 2, 1980); “Half-way There” (The Economist, August 3, 1985).

108 Jack Manning, “Tax-Free Shops A Bonus for Idlewild Traveler” (New York Times, November 24, 1963).

109 Linda S. Mason, “Caribbean Island Braces for Winds of Change” New York Times, February 28, 1965).

110 Fortunate in this as in so many respects, Switzerland negotiated a zone franche in French territory, mainly to supply Geneva with agricultural produce, although it seems not to have otherwise enjoyed maritime access. “Switzerland” (The Economist, September 25, 1920); “The Savoy Free Zones” (The Economist, June 11, 1932).

111 “New Deal in Bolivia” (The Economist, September 11, 1943); see too “The Case of Bolivia” (The Economist, September 11, 1943); and “Chile Reaffirms Free Port Use” (New York Times, January 27, 1953); Bolivia lost its stretch of coastline during the War of the Pacific, but nationalists never reconciled themselves to this loss – particularly grave in an economy dependent on exports. Nevertheless, these articles make Brazil’s mediation seem more central than it was. There was a history of free port negotiations in the region revolving around access points for neighbors; thus, there were 1884 negotiations with Chile over making Antofagasta (formerly Bolivian) into a free port for Bolivia, and later Arica; multilateral negotiations in 1889 involving Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina; and further negotiations in 1904 over access to Antofagasta, Arica, Iquique, Mejillones, Pisagua, and Tocopilla. See Perrier Brusle, “Bolivia,” passim; and St. John, Bolivia, 60, 67, 82. Note, too, that Paraguay had also already been seeking a free port in Argentina: “South America Looks at Europe” (The Economist, December 30, 1939).

112 “U.S. Favors Talk by Karachi, Kabul” (New York Times, December 20, 1955).

113 “The Shah’s Embrace” (The Economist, May 18, 1974).

114 Kit Gillet, “Time-Worn Village Springs Back to Life, Thanks to Port” (New York Times, September 3, 2015).

115 “Argentine Affairs” (The Economist, September 21, 1907); “Argentina” (The Economist, October 26 , 1907).

116 “Trade Zones Seek Wider Activities” (New York Times, October 24, 1949); see too R. L. Duffus, “Free Port Offers Boon to Trade” (New York Times, February 2, 1936). In fact, the opposition of inland manufacturers was probably the reason that industry was excluded from the initial act: “Public Apathy Held to Block Free Port” (The New York Times, December 11, 1932). Industrial zone projects had been canvassed for the United States as early as 1894, when Austin Corbin began to project one for Montauk, Long Island. Orenstein, Out of Stock, 129–30.

117 “British Window Glass Company, Limited” (The Economist, October 25, 1919).

118 “Shoes for the U.S. Come from Trieste” (New York Times, February 12, 1951). An earlier example of zone-type manufacturing may be found in Henry Ford’s decision to manufacture cars in Trieste during the mid-1920s: here, access to the nearby Italian market was the aim, rather than competitiveness on a global market. Orenstein, Out of Stock, 124.

119 Sam Pope Brewer, “Curacao Expects A New Free Port” (New York Times, February 13, 1955); “Free Port Slated on Grand Bahama” (New York Times, August 8, 1955); for the actual passage of the bill, see “Transport News of Interest Here” (New York Times, April 26, 1956). On Puerto Rico see Advertisement “Now you can Operate a Factory in Puerto Rico’s New Foreign Trade Zone without Paying Taxes and Duties” (The Economist, June 23, 1962). The centrality of Puerto Rico’s ‘Operation Bootstrap’ to the development of the export processing zone (as magnified into a model by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization) is well known, if overstated: see Neveling, “Export Processing Zones,” 73–7; see too, for some gentle revisionism, Orenstein, Out of Stock, 198–9, 312 n. 58; Maruschke, Portals of Globalization, 78–80.

120 George Horne, “Big Dominican Shipyard Project Gets its First Shipment of Steel” (New York Times, May 16, 1955).

121 Robert Trumbull, “Guam, Isolated but Increasingly Americanized, Seeks Political Home Rule” (New York Times, April 3, 1966).

122 Yet see the case of Manaus, discussed in section 3 above.

123 Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World, 482; see too Maruschke, Portals of Globalization, passim, esp. 2, 7, 20, 92.

124 See Tazzara, “Capitalism and the Special Economic Zone,” 87–91.

125 Quote from Ogle, “Archipelago Capitalism,” 1456; see too Neveling, “Export Processing Zones,” 64; and now Slobodian, Crack-Up Capitalism. These histories are important correctives to ‘internalist’ narratives of neoliberalism (such as that offered in Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism), even if they offer a truncated genealogy of zonal organisation.

126 “Taiwan Sharpens Its Dragon Teeth” (The Economist, June 22, 1985).