> Nixon imposed price controls on oil in Aug 1971, which enabled the oil embargo
The Arab Oil embargo wasn't "enabled" by US price controls, it was enabled by the fact that the Arabs states involved supplied a substantial fraction of the world's oil supply.
And, while it was certainly a response to action by the US government, it wasn't to US oil price controls, it was to US support for Israel.
> This all stopped when Reagan, as his first Executive Order, repealed the price controls.
No, its stopped because by the time Reagan became President, Arab state priorities had shifted (with many favoring increased deliveries for domestic economic reasons), overall production distribution had shifted greatly increasing the share of non-OPEC production, and US consumption had dropped, which led Jimmy Carter to issue an executive order ending price controls (which Reagan accelerated.)
I lived through that time. There was a pretty sharp line before and after that EO - I never was in a gas line again, and was in the months leading up to it.
Carter had 4 years to eliminate the price and allocation controls, and left it to Reagan to repeal the price and allocation controls 8 days after being inaugurated.
As to it enabling it, the price controls prevented domestic prices from being bid up so that domestic supply could be increased to blunt the embargo. Non-Arab oil imports could raise their prices, but because of the price controlled cheap domestic oil, which they'd be competing with, they sold instead to Europe, etc., from where they'd get higher prices. In essence, price controls enabled the embargo because it prevented the market from responding to and circumventing it.
Reisman goes into some detail on this in the reference I cited.
The Arabs had been providing a substantial fraction of global oil since at least 1950, when the US began imports. However it wasn't until 1972 that the the US had no slack supply capability.
There had been previous attempts at oil embargoes, particularly in 1967[1] and 1956[2] during the Six Day War and Suez Crisis, respectively. Neither was effective. At both times, loss of supply could be made up for elsewhere. Peak oil in the U.S. lead to vulnerability.
The Arab Oil embargo wasn't "enabled" by US price controls, it was enabled by the fact that the Arabs states involved supplied a substantial fraction of the world's oil supply.
And, while it was certainly a response to action by the US government, it wasn't to US oil price controls, it was to US support for Israel.
> This all stopped when Reagan, as his first Executive Order, repealed the price controls.
No, its stopped because by the time Reagan became President, Arab state priorities had shifted (with many favoring increased deliveries for domestic economic reasons), overall production distribution had shifted greatly increasing the share of non-OPEC production, and US consumption had dropped, which led Jimmy Carter to issue an executive order ending price controls (which Reagan accelerated.)