Book Review: Trading with the Enemy in World War II

Abstract

The development of economic warfare, which has reached proportions never heretofore known, is evidenced in this country, aside from blacklists, preemptive buying, etc., by the "freezing" of the funds of all European and Japanese foreigners through whom American assets might have reached the enemy countries, and by the vesting of new powers in the Alien Property Custodian. The vast occupations of the enemy Powers have seriously modified the old conceptions of nationality or domicile as the test of enemy character, and have expanded greatly the administrative definitions and classifications of "enemy" and "ally of enemy." The "loyalty" test beclouds former categories. The expansion of the concept of "enemy nationals" and of "nationals- of a designated enemy country" has made the experience of earlier wars somewhat less useful, and has made an authoritative guide to their interpretation indispensable.