72
Opinion of the Court
"In addition to answering the nexus, apportionment, and nondiscrimination questions posed in Complete Auto [Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274, 279 (1977)], a court must also inquire, first, whether the tax, notwithstanding apportionment, creates a substantial risk of international multiple taxation, and, second, whether the tax prevents the Federal Government from 'speaking with one voice when regulating commercial relations with foreign governments.' " 441 U. S., at 451.
Without passing on the point, we assumed the California property tax in question would have met the test of Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274 (1977). See 441 U. S., at 451. Proceeding to the two foreign commerce requirements we had identified, we found the California tax incompatible with both. We held that because Japan had the established right, consistent with the custom of nations, see id., at 447, to tax the property value of the containers in full, California's tax "produce[d] multiple taxation in fact," id., at 452. We held further that California's tax prevented the United States from speaking with one voice in foreign affairs, in that "[t]he risk of retaliation by Japan, under these circumstances, [was] acute, and such retaliation of necessity would be felt by the Nation as a whole." Id., at 453.
Four years later we again addressed whether a California tax offended the Foreign Commerce Clause, this time in the context of a unitary business income tax. Container Corp. of America v. Franchise Tax Bd., 463 U. S. 159 (1983). Although recognizing that California's income tax shared some of the same characteristics as the property tax involved in Japan Line, see 463 U. S., at 187, we nevertheless upheld it based on two distinguishing characteristics.
First, the problem of double taxing in Container Corp., "although real, [was] not the 'inevitabl[e]' result of the California [income] taxing scheme." Id., at 188 (quoting Japan Line, supra, at 447). On the other hand, "[i]n Japan Line, we relied strongly on the fact that one taxing juris-
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