Chile, the United States, and the Korean War "Copper Problem".

On May 2, 1952, Chilean President Gabriel González Videla, a staunch U.S. ally, suddenly terminated the Washington Agreement governing the sale of copper to the United States, in effect, imposing an embargo and nationalizing the export of copper in the midst of the Korean War. Indeed, as Jeffrey Taffet notes, the U.S. and Chilean governments fought a similar battle during the Vietnam War that also ended in the United States government employing financial inducements and diplomatic arm-twisting to bring the Eduardo Frei administration back into line on copper prices. Even worse, if the government sold its accumulated stocks, the "dumping" of that "copper on the market at one time would further lower the price" and exacerbate its problems going forward.[43] Ibañistas first approached U.S. officials with bluster, asserting that it was the "obligation of the United States Government to maintain the 35 ½ cent price in order to save the Chilean economy from bankruptcy" and threatening nationalization or Iron Curtain sales. See also, Hal Brands, I Latin America's Cold War i (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 9-24; Brian Loveman, I No Higher Law: American Foreign Policy and the Western Hemisphere since 1776 i (Chapel Hill, NC, 2010), 253-283; Alan McPherson, I Intimate Ties, Bitter Struggles: The United States and Latin America since 1945 i (Dulles, VA, 2006), 20-44; Stephen G. Rabe, I The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America i (New York, 2016), 21-35. 5 Gilbert M. Joseph, "Border crossings and the remaking of Latin American Cold War Studies", I Cold War History i 19, no. 1 (2019): 152. [Extracted from the article]