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.”
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