Expropriation
Additional info from Answers.com In 1952, faced with an impending strike by steelworkers, President Truman signed Executive Order No. 10340, 17 Fed. Reg. 3139, expropriating eighty-eight steel mills across the country. Again, the president defended his action by declaring that the welfare of the country was at stake. He supported this argument by stressing the demands of the war in Korea. He believed that a steel strike would endanger the lives of U.S. soldiers. This time, Trumans action caused a constitutional crisis that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Youngstown Sheet Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S. Ct. 863, 96 L. Ed. 1153 (1952), the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the president did not have the power to take private property to settle a labor dispute. The steelworkers strike began the same day as the ruling and lasted seven weeks. U.S. businesses were expropriated by the governments of both Cuba and Chile during socialist movements in those foreign countries. In May 1959, after Fidel Castro took over the Cuban government, the seizure of many large U.S. properties began. Before the revolution, U.S. corporations had controlled most of Cubas resources and over half of its sugar production. In 1960, the first shipment of Soviet oil arrived in Cuba. Under the advice of the U.S. Treasury Department, U.S. oil companies on the island refused to refine it. These refineries were then taken over by the Cuban government. The expropriation of U.S. property in Cuba and Cubas alliance with the Soviet Union eventually led to the United States breaking off all diplomatic relations and instituting an embargo. In 1971, the Chilean people elected a socialist president, Salvador Allende. Soon afterward, the Chilean government began to expropriate U.S. businesses located in Chile. The primary U.S. business in Chile at this time was copper mining. When U.S.-owned mines were seized, in most cases, their owners were provided with adequate and prompt compensation. The El