American foreign policy changed drastically between 1890 and 1917, from isolationist to interventionist. This change was due to economic factors as well as several other important factors. Many of these were factors outside of US control, but many of them were influenced by people or events in the USA.
Big business is one economic factor that influenced US foreign policy. The business giants like J.P. Morgan put pressure on politicians to become more interventionist because they knew that this would encourage trade links with other countries. When the US finally did join world war one, trade with Britain increased by three times, and US big businessmen made a lot of money. The search for new markets meant the US would have to involve itself with the rest of the world. These new policies required military and naval support.
By the 1890’s, the USA was also such a world superpower that it would be very difficult for it to not get involved with world affairs – it had the power to intervene in foreign affairs, and so public pressure was very much on it to do so.
The strength of the American economy was soon exploited by Presidents and used in their foreign policy, for example Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy. He used loans and debts to effectively control the economies of other countries such as the Honduras in 1909. This would not have been possible if the US economy had not been as strong, and of course if other countries had not been in such economic turmoil.
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Economic factors such as these were key in shaping US foreign policies between 1890 and 1917.
One of the key factors that influenced American foreign policy were the personal agendas of the presidents of the period. Other politicians in powerful positions also affected foreign policy, for example during the Boxer Rising in China in 1900. It led to foreign embassies in Beijing being besieged, and the US joined the international force that was formed with the intention of restoring peace and order in China. When it became apparent that China may be divided amongst the European powers the US Secretary of State, John Hay, stet out Open Door policy, with the intention of preventing China’s division and keeping the principle of free trade in China. John Hay had a huge influence in how the USA reacted to this event.
Possibly one of the most obvious examples of presidency affecting foreign policy is Theodore Roosevelt. He was one of the most imperialistic men in the country, holding very interventionist views, and this showed in US foreign policies of the time. In 1901, the year that Roosevelt assumed presidency, Congress passed the Platt Amendment, which authorised American intervention in the international and domestic affairs of Cuba. This was a huge change in the foreign policy of the country, and it showed that the US, under Roosevelt’s influence, was veering away from the Monroe Doctrine and towards direct interventionism and a new expansionist approach.
Woodrow Wilson brought yet another change in US foreign policy. Together with his secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, he emphasised that foreign affairs should be dealt with peacefully and ethically, with Christian principles at heart. He stopped Dollar Diplomacy and supported Open Door policy.
Wilson did sometimes follow an interventionist policy. In response to the Mexican Revolution of 1910 – 1911, which threatened American business interests there, Wilson sent in marines to the port of Vera Cruz to ‘restore order’ there.
The examples above prove that presidential and personal agendas and personalities were important as well as economic factors in influencing US foreign policy.
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Some historians argue that several events outside of US control forced it to become involved in world politics. World War One is the most obvious of these. According to its founding principles the US had a duty to the rest of the world to defend democracy. The major US politicians at the time also had British ancestry, such as Woodrow Wilson, so felt compelled to help their country of origin in defending itself. Some historians, such as Harry Elmer Barnes, however, say that America joined World War One due to economic factors, which again suggests that economic factors were the most important.
Events such as the Spanish-American war also dragged the USA into world politics. After the destruction of the USS Maine the USA would have looked cowardly and apathetic if they had not waged war. The sinking of the Lusitania had a similar effect in 1916. The fact that the USA had borders with several other countries also made it hard for it to remain isolationist: as the Zimmerman telegram illustrates, bordering countries could be influenced by hostile European powers.
These examples suggest that although important, economic factors were by no means the only ones influencing foreign policy.
I think that although economic factors were possibly the most important in US foreign policy, they were by no means the only factors that drew the USA towards interventionism, and would probably not have done so unless the other factors were also present. If the USA had not had a succession of presidents and events that encouraged interventionism then it probably would have stayed isolationist for longer.
Bibliography : www.spartacus.schoolnet.com
