The second sentence explains why the nationality matters:
> Some farms are foreign-owned and are shipping the crop to Saudi Arabia, where it's illegal to grow because it takes too much water.
In this globalistic world it's worth considering that stringent policy in one area of the world can be worked around by taking advantage of lax policy in another area of the world. It's not xenophobic to talk about that. It would be ignorant not to.
Saudi owned farms circumventing Saudi laws is an issue for the people of Saudi Arabia. If it is legal in the US, it should be legal for everyone. If you want it to be illegal in the US, it should be illegal for everyone. The owners are and should be irrelevant.
It is reasonable for a region to decide its natural resources should benefit the people who live there above people who do not live there.
That's a strawman. No one is arguing against that.
How a resource is being used by foreign corporations is an important input to policy decisions.
We're at a point in today's society where the mere suggestion that nationality might be relevant is met with accusations of xenophobia. It's the same way with race or sex.
Race exists due to nature and we use it to denote distinctions in our collective race.
We should celebrate our differences, not pretend they don't exist, or are merely humans being derogatory to each other.
How is the nationality relevant? Would this behavior be acceptable if the farms were owned by an Australian company? What about a publicly traded American company? What about an Arizonan billionaire? I don’t see how that would change anything.
Monopolizing natural resources is bad regardless of the nationality or residency of the people profiting.
In geopolitics (especially as applied to critical resources) -- and that's what this comes down to, really; not simply greed -- this never the case, of course.
It's always relevant who the owners of are - and what kinds of influence led them to being able to put down stakes where they have.
You might say it's the name of the game, in fact.
The nationality of the company seems the least important issue in this whole story.
That does have some logic, similar to out of state landlords or corporate landlords milking a property for as much rent with absolute minimal upkeep as they have no involvement in the community.
A flaw with that argument with the foreign water exporters and also with the landlord is that local landlords or businesses also can be equally bad.
But still, there is some sense to it and may have some truth if the average behaviors were quantified
Yes, it's bad even if Americans do it, but it's definitely worse if it goes to Saud.
Would you object to "Rockefellers draw unlimited etc"? What if they also literally owned a country?
Maybe you misunderstood my point. I'm not giving the Saudis a pass. I would object to anyone doing this whether it is the Saudis, the Rockefellers, or some middle class farmer. The problem here is a poorly constructed regulatory environment which created a tragedy of the commons situation. We made it profitable to do something that is bad for the local environment and inherently stupid. People shouldn't grow water intensive plans in the desert.
The problem here is "company draws unlimited Arizona ground water amid drought". There doesn't need to be an adjective before "company".
>"We cannot afford to give our water away frankly to anyone, let alone the Saudis, for free," said Mayes.
This person is saying that giving the water away to the Saudis is worse than just giving it away. It isn't simply the action of taking the water that is troubling them. It is that it is going to a scary other. This is classic xenophobia.
It is not xenophobia to acknowledge it's worse to do something dumb which enriches your ideological and material enemies than to just do something dumb.
It would be one thing if it was irrational, like not wanting to go to a Saudi barber, but when foreign nationals are draining critical geopolitically relevant resources, regardless of if other Americans are doing it to, to call it xenophobic to even mention the association seems like pure madness to me. There is nothing irrational about questioning the motives here.
Arizona passed a law requiring developments of 6 or more homes to provide for water. Consequently, many developers now make all of their developments 5 homes in order to skirt that law. Urban water suppliers (which are government run utilities)_have cut those suburban/rural customers off. Which is making the water problem madly political.