The free-market-inclined U.S. scrap industry may not have been roused by these disreputable episodes, but the Chinese-American community was. In 1939 and 1940, they organized protests at docks where scrap metal was being loaded for Japan. The American scrap men weren’t moved to restrict their trade (or show up for the protests), however, and the exports continued until President Roosevelt used his administrative authority to prohibit U.S. scrap exports to Japan and Germany in July 1940. The Japanese, undeterred, turned to Central and South America to meet their military-driven demand. That
...more
