Americans consumed just as much Arab oil during the 1973 OPEC “embargo” as they did before it. By some accounts, they consumed more.
Which is a reminder that if you’re producing, you’re trading with the world. And vice versa. So-called “Arab oil” that the Arab members of OPEC weren’t selling directly into the U.S. was still reaching the U.S. via those the Arab producers were selling to. As Saudi Oil Sheikh Yahmani ultimately acknowledged, the embargo was “symbolic.”
The truth about global trade came to mind quite a bit while reading Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper’s 2022 book, Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK. On his way to making a not-so-veiled swipe against Brexit that he claims he’s not making, Kuper has interesting anecdotes about some of the most famous names in modern British politics. But plainly eager to tie those anecdotes to a broader narrative about class, inequality, elite education and how it allegedly led to Brexit and coronavirus errors in the UK, Kuper comes up short.
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