New Markets: American Business Follows the Flag

Capital.

During the 1940s many American businesses became truly international. During World War II American businesses expanded dramatically and acquired enormous wealth that could be used as investment capital after the war. In 1947 American investments abroad reached an all-time high of $26.7 billion, with a net outflow of $5.8 billion in loans and investments occurring in the first six months of 1947 alone. Both the private and the public sectors invested in overseas facilities; $16 billion in private capital and $ 10.7 billion in public capital went to foreign projects. Much government investment took place in new international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the Marshall Plan.

Open Markets.

The American policy was to open foreign markets as part of an effort to contain communism and to prevent another global economic disaster such...

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