The most important of the plants for latex production is the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis whose cultivation is restricted to tropical climates.
One reason is South American Leaf Blight that affected rubber trees in Brazil that reduced productivity and caused British and Dutch rubber producers to start new plantations in Malaya and in the Dutch East Indies.
Around 1920 the British Rubber Growers Association turned to then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, for help.
The Dutch refused to go along with the plan out of a philosophical reluctance to regulate their industry and because they would profit from a unilateral action by the British.
In the United States tiremaker Harvey Firestone reacted angrily to the act as did Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.
The United States increasingly focused on efforts to recycle and reclaim rubber, as well as use tires in a more economic way.
This was one of the provocations said to motivate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which caused the United States’ entry into World War II.