William F. Havemeyer, a sugar magnate, was elected in 1873, and William R. Grace, a multinational trader, won in 1885.
In June this year, a fire at a chemical dump used by the multinational trader Dole caused a toxic cocktail to spill into the nearby river.
Raj Patel, an expert in the global food trade and former UN employee, said Glencore and other multinational food traders were in a "fine position to make money from a crisis because they've pushed for an international economic system that relies on them".
The multinational oil trader denies that the waste could have caused the victims' illnesses, which have reportedly led to at least 17 deaths.
In 2009, the Guardian fought a landmark legal battle to reveal the links from Trafigura, a multinational oil trader, to the dumping of tonnes of toxic waste in the African nation three years earlier, causing a public health crisis that affected more than 100,000 people.
They are eminently political, depicting, first from a rightwing perspective, then, increasingly, a leftist one, a 20th century characterised, just like the present era, by conflict over Middle Eastern oil, the perpetually unsettled Balkans, galloping technological progress, profiteering multinationals and arms traders who have one foot in the president's office.
His Budget speech on Wednesday will include a promise to tighten a loophole, which is allowing vast numbers of traders, including multinational firms, to sell goods over the internet free of VAT.
Market actors range from private individual traders to multinational corporations.
These are objectives welcomed by firms from sole traders to multinationals.
"We service a broad range of customers from sole traders to multinationals who either see it as attractive or a real turn off," she says.
