Franklin D. Roosevelt

::FDR redirects here. For other uses, see FDR (disambiguation).

Foreign policy 1933-41

The rejection of the League of Nations treaty in 1919 marked the dominance of isolationism in American foreign policy. Despite his Wilsonian background, Roosevelt and his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, acted with great care not to provoke isolationist sentiment. The main foreign policy initiative of Roosevelt's first term was the Good Neighbor Policy, a re-evaluation of American policy towards Latin America, which ever since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 had been seen as an American sphere of influence. American forces were withdrawn from Haiti, and new treaties with Cuba and Panama ended their status as American protectorates. At the Seventh International Conference of American States in Montevideo in December 1933, Roosevelt and Hull signed the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, renouncing the assumed American right to intervene unilaterally in the affairs of Latin American countries. Nevertheless, the realities of American support for various Latin American dictators, often to serve American corporate interests, remained unchanged. It was Roosevelt who made the often-quoted remark about the dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza: "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch."

Related Topics:
League of Nations - 1919 - Isolationism - Cordell Hull - Good Neighbor Policy - Latin America - Monroe Doctrine - 1823 - Sphere of influence - Haiti - Cuba - Panama - Protectorate - Seventh International Conference of American States - Montevideo - 1933 - Montevideo Convention - Dictator - Nicaragua - Anastasio Somoza

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The rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany aroused fears of a new world war. In 1935, at the time of Fascist Italy's invasion of Abyssinia, Congress passed the Neutrality Act, applying a mandatory ban on the shipment of arms from the U.S. to any combatant nation. Roosevelt opposed the act on the grounds that it penalized the victims of aggression such as Abyssinia, and that it restricted his right as President to assist friendly countries, but he eventually signed it. In 1937 Congress passed an even more stringent Act, but when the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937 Roosevelt found various ways to assist China, and warned that Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were threats to world peace and to the U.S. When World War II in Europe broke out in 1939, Roosevelt became increasingly eager to assist Britain and France, and he began a regular secret correspondence with Winston Churchill, in which the two freely discussed ways of circumventing the Neutrality Acts.

Related Topics:
Adolf Hitler - 1935 - Fascist Italy - Abyssinia - Neutrality Act - 1937 - Sino-Japanese War - China - Nazi Germany - Imperial Japan - World War II - Europe - 1939 - Britain - France

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In May 1940 Germany attacked France and rapidly occupied the country, leaving Britain vulnerable to German air attack and possible invasion. Roosevelt was determined to prevent this and sought to shift public opinion in favor of aiding Britain. He secretly aided a private body, the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, and he appointed two anti-isolationist Republicans, Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox, as Secretaries of War and the Navy respectively. The fall of Paris shocked American opinion, and isolationist sentiment declined. In August, Roosevelt openly defied the Neutrality Acts with the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, which gave 50 American destroyers to Britain and Canada in exchange for base rights in the British Caribbean islands. This was a precursor of the March 1941 Lend-Lease agreement which began to direct massive military and economic aid to Britain.

Related Topics:
1940 - Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies - Henry L. Stimson - Frank Knox - Paris - Destroyers for Bases Agreement - Destroyers - Canada - 1941 - Lend-Lease

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