This dastardly attack

The anticipated lawsuit against the CNMI garment industry is not so much an assault upon one narrow industry. On the contrary, it represents a far more sinister act–a dastardly attack upon a small and fragile island territory: the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, presently besieged by enormous economic difficulties.

The lawsuit, which seeks to claim about $1 billion in damages, need not prevail in a court of law. Indeed, there is no legal case to be made. The charges are completely false and without merit. The case has no facts and no law in its favor. The lawsuit cannot possibly triumph in any legitimate court of law. But to win in court is probably not its ultimate purpose.

The intention, presumably, is to intimidate, harass, pressure and frighten our customers. The targets of this audacious scare tactic are the garment buyers in the states, many of whom–regardless of the facts–are extremely sensitive to any kind of adverse publicity.

The targets may be the CNMI’s garment industry and its buyers, but the ultimate victims in this crusade are neither the garment factory owners nor their retail buyers. The garment factories can always relocate elsewhere, and the buyers can always buy anywhere. But the people of the CNMI cannot easily replace a multi-million dollar industry once the damage of this lawsuit has been done.

We, the indigenous people of the CNMI, are the real victims in this sordid conspiracy. We are helpless pawns in this national and international power play, between the forces of protectionism and the champions of profit and free trade.

The leftist–the anti-business, anti-garment–crusaders will tell us that the garment tycoons are all to blame–that, if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be in so much trouble with the feds and the national media in the first place. Such folks play directly into the hands of our hardened, most visceral detractors. They are the unwitting pawns in the conspiracy against the Northern Marianas.

To be sure, many of the CNMI’s garment factory owners have other textile operations abroad, both in Asia and in Latin America, where free trade with the US also prevails. If the CNMI’s factories get hit, other factories abroad will merely make up the difference. And if CNMI operations prove no longer profitable, these factories–along with their jobs, their taxes and their myriad other benefits–will simply have to go elsewhere, leaving our people almost completely destitute, with a severe economic void.

Make no mistake about it. This is not just about the garment industry. It is about our very economic livelihoods–about our standard of living and prosperity as an independent, self-sufficient Pacific island territory.