01:512:205 Lecture 35: Chapter 35
18 May 2018
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Chapter 35: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of
War, 1933-1941
The London Conference
• Americans in the 1930s tried to turn their backs on the world’s problems
• But as war seemed imminent in Europe, Roosevelt eventually concluded that
the United States could no longer remain aloof—events gradually brought the
American people around to his thinking: no nation was safe in an era of
international anarchy
• The 66-nation London Economic Conference, meeting summer of 1933,
revealed how Roosevelt’s foreign policy was subordinated to his strategy for
domestic economic recovery
• The London Conference hoped to organize an international attack on the
global depression
• Exchange-rate stabilization was essential to the revival of world trade (gone
by 1933)
• Roosevelt sent an American delegation to the conference (SS Hull) but the
president wanted to pursue gold and inflationary policies at home as a means
of stimulating American recovery
• Roosevelt was unwilling to sacrifice the possibility of domestic recovery and
he scolded the conference for attempting to stabilize currencies, declaring
America’s withdrawal
• The delegates adjourned empty-handed, amid cries of American bad faith
• The collapse of the London Conference strengthened the global trend toward
extreme nationalism, making international cooperation more difficult in the
1930s
• The persistence of American isolationism played directly into the hands of
dictators
Freedom for (from?) the Filipinos
and Recognition for the Russians
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find more resources at oneclass.com
• Roosevelt matched isolationism from Europe with withdrawal from Asia (Far
East imperialism)
• In hard times, Americans were eager to drop their expensive tropical liability in
the Philippine Islands (low-wag Filipino workers and Philippine competition in
the sugar industry)
• Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934 that provided for the
independence of the Philippines after a twelve-year period of economic and
political guidance—by 1946
• The US agreed to relinquish its army bases but not its naval bases
• The American people were not so much giving freedom to the Philippines as
they were freeing themselves from the Philippines—proposed to leave the
Philippines to their fate
• American isolationists rejoiced while Japanese militarists calculated that they
had little to fear from an inward-looking America that was abandoning its
principal possession in Asia
• Roosevelt formally recognized the Soviet Union in 1933—over the protest of
anticommunist conservatives, as well as Roman Catholics offended by
Kremlin’s antireligious policies
• He was motivated in part by the hope of trade with Soviet Russia, as well as
by the desire to bolster the Soviet Union as a counterweight to the threat of
German power and Japanese power
Becoming a Good Neighbor
• Roosevelt said, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the Good
Neighbor
• Roosevelt’s withdrawal suggested that the US was giving up its ambition to be
a world power
• The Great Depression had cooled off Yankee economic aggressiveness and
now the hated marines were protecting fewer dollars—Roosevelt was eager to
line up the Latin Americans to help defend the Western Hemisphere by
renouncing armed intervention (Monroe Doctrine)
• At the Seventh Pan-American Conference, the US formally endorsed
nonintervention
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find more resources at oneclass.com
• The last marines departed from Haiti in 1934 and in the same year, Cuba was
released from the Platt Amendment, Panama was given uplift in 1936, as
Washington relaxed its grip
• The Good Neighbor policy was tested in Mexico when the Mexican gov’t
seized Yankee oil properties in 1938 but Roosevelt worked out a settlement in
1941
• Roosevelt’s policy paid rich dividends in goodwill among the peoples to the
south
Secretary Hull’s Reciprocal Trade
Agreements
• Associated with Good Neighborism was the reciprocal trade policy of the New
Dealers
• Created by the Secretary of State Hull, he believed that a nation could sell
abroad only as it buys abroad, that tariff barriers choke off foreign trade, and
that trade wars beget shooting wars
• Responding to Hull-Roosevelt leadership, Congress passed the Reciprocal
Trade Agreements Act in 1934—this enlightened measure was aimed at both
relief and recovery
• It activated the low-tariff policies of the New Dealers—amended parts of the
Hawley-Smoot law
• Roosevelt could lower rates by as much as 50 percent, provided that the other
country involved was willing to respond with similar reductions—did not need
formal approval of the Senate
• Secretary Hull negotiated pacts with 21 countries by the end of 1939 and U.S.
foreign trade increased appreciably—Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act was a
landmark piece of legislation and reversed the traditional high-protective-tariff
policy that had persisted for so long
• Paved way for the American-led free-trade international economic system
after WW II
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Chapter 35: franklin d. roosevelt and the shadow of. The london conference: americans in the 1930s tried to turn their backs on the world"s problems, but as war seemed imminent in europe, roosevelt eventually concluded that the united states could no longer remain aloof events gradually brought the. America"s withdrawal: the delegates adjourned empty-handed, amid cries of american bad faith, the collapse of the london conference strengthened the global trend toward extreme nationalism, making international cooperation more difficult in the. 1930s: the persistence of american isolationism played directly into the hands of dictators. Freedom for (from?) the filipinos and recognition for the russians: roosevelt matched isolationism from europe with withdrawal from asia (far. Kremlin"s antireligious policies: he was motivated in part by the hope of trade with soviet russia, as well as by the desire to bolster the soviet union as a counterweight to the threat of.
