Foreign Policy
What was America’s foreign policy in the 1920s? Isolationism
Why would this policy continue into the 1930s? Great Depression; had to focus on the economy and
domestic issues
Isolationism? Really?
THE WASHINGTON NAVAL CONFERENCE (1921-22) – U.S. hosted a naval conference in which it negotiated reductions in the navies of Britain, France, Italy, Japan, & the U.S. itself
KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT (1928) – an international agreement in which participant states promised not to use war to resolve "disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them"
Do you recognize the cartoonist?
Why did Americans
believe they could remain
neutral?
Dr. Seuss
The separate beds meant they were separated by an ocean.
Europe’s diseases wouldn’t spread
to America
How does this cartoon contradict the beliefs of the American public illustrated in the previous cartoon?
Neutrality Acts
Neutrality Act of 1935 The President of the United States was banned from
Selling arms Providing loans Giving an form of assistance to nations involved in war
All U.S. citizens traveling on warring ships, did so at their own risk
Neutrality Act of 1936 Extended the 1935 act for additional 14 months However, it exempted civil wars
Neutrality Acts
Neutrality Act of 1937 Forbids sale of arms to countries involved in civil wars Prohibits U.S. citizens from traveling on belligerent
ships U.S. ships could not transport passengers or articles
to belligerent nations Cash and Carry
U.S. could sell materials to belligerents if They paid cash Arranged for the transportation of those materials
Lend-Lease Act
Cash and Carry left the Allies short on cash
Lend-Lease (1941) U.S. could sell or lend
war materials to “any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States”
FDR vowed to keep the U.S. out of war, but the country would become the “arsenal of democracy”
FDR signing the Lend-Lease Act into legislation
Lend-Lease Act
If your neighbor’s house
is on fire, you don’t sell him a
hose. You lend it to him and take it back after the
fire is out.
Pearl Harbor
Japanese Aggression After the Nanjing
Massacre, the U.S. supported China through the Lend-Lease Act
Embargoes and Sanctions US froze Japan’s assets in
America US refused to trade oil,
steel and rubber to Japan• Japan needed these
resources to continue its imperial march in the Pacific
Pearl Harbor
Tripartite Pact (1940) Japan, Germany, and Italy made an agreement that if a
country not involved in WWII attacked one of the three, the others would come to that countries aid
In November 1941, U.S. intercepted Japanese messages, which revealed an assault in the Pacific was imminent
Pearl Harbor
Japan believed attacking Pearl Harbor would cripple the US Pacific Fleet for 18 months, thus allowing them to continue their plans for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Pearl Harbor
The Japanese attacked in two waves. The first wave of Japanese planes were detected on radar, but believed to be US bombers coming from California.
Pearl Harbor Stats•2,340 military killed•48 civilian killed•1,143 military wounded•35 civilian wounded
DECEMBER 7, 1941: A DATE THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY
The attack on Pearl Harbor prompted FDR to ask Congress for a declaration of war Congress votes 477 – 1 in favor of war