During the war years, the United States government gave serious thought to acquiring a direct interest in Arabian [oil] reserves. - Neil H. Jacoby

In a world market that was free of all taxes, royalties, or other governmental constraints, and in which competition was effective, the price of oil would be very low. But the real-world market for oil is dominated by high taxation by the oil-exporting nations, and, since 1972, by concerted efforts of the members of the OPEC to raise prices and to restrict output. Because of effective competition in the industry and the power of OPEC, an international oil company today has relatively little influence on the price of oil to consumers.

Because some conglomerate, and other, mergers have proved to be unsound and failed. It has been proposed that government should prohibit such mergers. But there is no feasible way to identify bad mergers in advanced; only time and the test of market competition reveal them.

Thus the principle that no foreign political payments shall be made often collides with the principle that we should expand international trade and investment, that multinational companies should conform to local business practices, that the United States should avoid extraterritorial application of its laws, or that this county should abjure moral as well as political and economic imperialism.