ABSTRACT
Oil companies fought tooth and nail against nationalization by organizing worldwide propaganda against "Mexican bandits" and setting up quite successfully a blockade of Mexican oil exports to all major industrial countries. The trauma of 1938, the blockade of Mexican oil in foreign markets, and the widespread conviction at home that oil was scarce, and the exigencies of industrialization through import substitution defined Mexico's oil policy during the postexpropriation period. Domestic fuel shortages and the rapid growth of crude and oil products imports altered Mexico's oil policy prior to the first international "oil shock" of 1973-1974. The skeptics were pointing to the economic and social costs of what was perceived as an undeniably excessive dependence on oil in Mexico. The opposite school of thought put emphasis on the benefits accruing to the semi-industrial country endowed with large and steadily expanding oil reserves.
