A New American Foreign Economic Policy

Abstract

In many respects, isolationism was just as strong in the United States in the 1930s as it had been in the 1920s. Many Americans remembered World War I, its slogans and its horror with dismay, and wished to avoid new military commitments in Europe. When the United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939, President Roosevelt was required by law to proclaim American neutrality and stop American shipments to the fighting nations. The following May, when the British began their evacuation from Dunkirk and Nazi troops stood at the English Channel, American ships could still not transport American supplies to its soon-to-be wartime allies. Nevertheless, in the area of foreign economic policy, the United States ceased to be isolationist in the thirties.KeywordsCentral BankInternational Monetary FundUnited States DollarUnited States GovernmentFederal Reserve SystemThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.