To the Americans, important interests and rights, including those of private property, were being attacked, and contracts and bargains were being broken. When Washington looked south toward Mexico, it saw instability, insecurity, banditry, anarchy, a dangerous threat to the flow of a strategic resource, and welshing on contracts. But when Mexico looked toward Washington and American oil companies, it saw foreign exploitation, humiliation, the violation of sovereignty, and the enormous weight, pressure, and power of “Yankee imperialism.” The oil companies, for their part, felt increasingly
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