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Comment by 7thaccount | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why any country would ever sell land under any circumstances. I'm thinking of Seward's Folly and the Louisiana Purchase.

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If you can’t defend it, getting some gold now vs losing it for nothing later is not that tough a sell. There was no way for France to defend the westward lands so it was either take the deal, or have them grab it.

This doesn’t look like a straight purchase either. They’re selling the development rights and it would still be Egypt jurisdiction.

> There was no way for France to defend the westward lands so it was either take the deal, or have them grab it.

There was nothing to defend. France didn't control the land. It was inhabited by Native Americans; the "sale" was actually a treaty stipulating that France would not oppose the US attempting to expand westward by seizing that land from Native Americans, and also that France would nominally oppose any other colonial power attempting to seize that land (which never happened).

> I don't know why any country would ever sell land under any circumstances

Me neither, but that's not what happened here. They're "selling" the development of the area, not the land itself. At least as far as I understand the article.

I believe it is a "sale" but that hardly means it becomes the UAE's sovereign territory! It means the UAE is diversifying their economy into absentee landlordism - it is totally valid for Egyptians to question if their government should get into this kind of commercial entanglement instead of selling that land to Egyptian developers, but it's hardly treason.

The Louisiana purchase was extremely savvy of France! They scarcely controlled it in the first place and couldn't afford the money or manpower to defend their claim to it. Instead of losing it in a war and getting some people killed in the process, they instead got paid for something they hardly even owned in practice. Extremely smart move.

Sometimes countries need cash, and maintaining the land is not worth it, and someone is willing to buy. Should Denmark have sold the Virgin Islands in 1917? It was put to a referendum, and the people said yes. Napoleon also needed cash, so he sold a lot of useless land in North America to a willing buyer.

The territory sizes of the countries haven’t changed. It’s a 65/35% development partnership.

Yes, it's similar to someone buying land in California. You still "own" the land, but it's still in United States. Ras el-Hekma is still in Egypt. It just happens to be owned by UAE.

1. Egypt isn't actually 'selling' the land like Louisiana was bought. It's selling it the same way someone's house was sold to them, or how McDonald's buys the land their restaurants sit on.

2. Taking Alaska as an example, there was a real risk Russia would be in a war with the UK again. If that happened, Alaska was completely indefensible. SO better get money for it now than lose it later.

The article goes into Egypt's motivations. Also: this is a lot less land than either of those deals.

Most things are a lot less land than Alaska

Check out the Treaty of Tordesillas.

Not quite the same thing, but still worth a look.

Why not? You can be a very successful country on very little land. And if you get money, you can invest it.

Dude, bad news but Bytedance owns an office in San Jose. Can't believe the US would sell land like that. All land should be owned by the community and developed under Sixth People's Congress Local 718 according to the Four Year Plan laid out.

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