The liberalization of international trade and the creation of an open world economic order were principal objectives of U.S. foreign policy after 1945. A consistent but often overlooked facet of the American attempt to restructure the global economy was the demand for international control of private cartel agreements. Cartels are defined as “agreements between firms in the same branch of trade limiting the freedom of these firms in the production and marketing of their products.” Ranging in form from centralized purchasing and distribution organizations to informal gentlemen's agreements, cartels aim to restrict output, allocate market shares, and fix product prices. According to various estimates, on the eve of World War II, international cartels controlled 30 to 50 percent of world trade, and American businesses participated in 107 out of 179 international cartels. Even though cartels were especially pronounced in sectors such as raw materials, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and electrical equipment, they “reached into practically every branch of the modern economy.”

The impetus for global decartelization after World War II originated in the American antitrust tradition and the New Deal. In the United States, corporate mergers had been the characteristic form of market regulation and economic concentration, in contrast to Britain and continental Europe, where industrial combinations traditionally had taken the form of syndicates and cartels. Although the Sherman Act of 1890 prohibited monopolization and collusion in restraint of trade, the Clayton Act of 1914 forbade price discrimination, tying contracts, and certain types of intercorporate concentration only in cases where anticompetitive or monopolistic effects could be demonstrated.