The London Conference

• 66 nations sent delegates to the London Economic Conference in the summer of 1933 with delegates hoping to coordinate international response to the global depression and wanted to stabilize currencies and the rates at which they could be exchanged

• Roosevelt opposed the conference cause he didn’t want to interfere with his own plans

• London Economic Conference fell apart without U.S. support and strengthened the global trend towards nationalism

Freedom for the Filipinos and Recognition for the Russians

• Roosevelt continued the nation’s isolationist policies with him withdrawing the U.S. from Asia

• Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934 which provided independence to the Philippines by 1946

• The nation didn’t want to have to support the Philippines if Japan attacked

• Roosevelt formally recognized Soviet Union which opened up trade and fostering a friendship to counterbalance threat of German power in Europe and Japanese power in Asia

Becoming a Good Neighbor

• FDR started the Good Neighbor policy which led to all the marines leaving Haiti in 1934 with America releasing control over Cuba and Panama

• Roosevelt held on to his unarmed intervention policy and a settlement was worked out in 1941 when Mexican government seized American oil properties

Secretary Hull's Reciprocal Trade Agreements

• Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934 which was designed to lower tariffs which allowed president to lower tariffs with a country if that country also lowered their tariffs

• Trade agreements dramatically increased U.S. foregin trade

• The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act paved way for the American-led free-trade international economic system which took shape after WWII

Storm-Cellar Isolationism

• Totalitarianism spread throughout Europe after the Great Depression

• Stalin took control of Communist USSR and killed hundreds of thousands of political foes

• Hitler was the most dangerous of all dictators due to the magnitude of his power and his impulsiveness

  • Nazi Hitler and Fascist Mussolini allied themselves in the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936

• Japan terminated the Washington Naval Treaty and accelerated their construction of large battleships in 1934

• Americans maintained isolationist attitude as they thought the surrounding oceans would protect them

Congress Legislates Neutrality

• Congress wanted to keep America out of war and therefore passed the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937

• The Neutrality Acts stated that when president proclaimed existence of foreign war there would be restrictions that were automatically put in place

  • Neutrality Acts made it so Americans couldn’t legally sail on ships of countries involved in war, sell or transport munitions to such countries, or give them loans

America Dooms Loyalist Spain

• Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 began with Spanish rebels rising against the republican government in Madrid

• The fascist leader, Franco had help overthrowing the Loyalist regime from Mussolini and Hitler with this being a “dress rehearsal” for WWII

  • U.S. wanted to stay out of war, so therefore Congress amended neutrality legislations to also apply an arms embargo to both the rebels and the Loyalists

Appeasing Japan and Germany

• Japanese invaded China in 1937 and Roosevelt refused to call the invasion a “war” making it so the neutrality legislation didn’t come into effect

  • Roosevelt’s refusal to call the invasion a “war” allowed for America to conduct ammunition sales with China, leading to a consequence of this decision being that the Japanese could still buy supplies for war

  • Roosevelt gave the Quarantine Speech in 1937 with him proposing economic embargoes against any aggressive dictators, which was opposed by the public

• Japanese planes sunk an American ship in 1937 (The Panay) and Tokyo apologized which was accepted by the U.S.

• Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles in 1935 by taking over German Rhineland

  • Hitler invaded Austria in March of 1938 and in March of 1939, Hitler took over all of Czechoslovakia

Hitler's Belligerency and U.S. Neutrality

• Soviet Union signed a nonaggression treaty with Hitler on August 23, 1939

• Hitler-Stalin pact meant Germany could make war on Poland and Western democracies without having to be wary of the Soviet Union

  • On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war on Germany, leading to the start of WWII

• Despite Americans being anti-Nazi, they still wished to stay out of the war

• Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939 which allowed European democracies to buy American war materials as long as they transported the purchases on their own ships and paid in cash which allowed U.S. to avoid loans, war debts, and American ships being sunk

• Demand for war materials helped end recession of 1937-1938 and also helped solve the unemployment crisis

The Fall of France

• Months following fall of Poland were known as the “phony war” as France and Britain weren’t involved in the war in terms of military

• The “phony war” ended with Hitler taking over Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, and Belgium

• France fell in June of 1940

  • Fall of France left it so Britain was the only thing standing in the way of Hitler controlling all of Europe which led to Roosevelt and Congress starting to build airfleets and a two-ocean navy

• Soviet Union conquered Finland despite Congress having loaned $30 million to Finland

• Congress initiated America’s first peacetime draft on September 6, 1940

• U.S. agreed to protect Latin America from German aggression at the Havana Conference of 1940

Refugees from the Holocaust

• German mobs attacked German Jews on November 9, 1938 and following the attack, thousands of Jews were imprisoned in concentration camps

• Upon receiving news of the Nazi genocide, FDR created the War Refugee Board with the purpose of helping victims of Nazis and other Axis powers

  • By the end of the war, more than 6 million Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust

Bolstering Britain

• Hitler launched air attacks on Britain in August of 1940, following fall of France but U.S. still wasn’t motivated to join the war

  • Roosevelt gave 50 destroyers left over from WWI to Britain on September 2, 1940 and in return, Britain gave the U.S. defensive base sites in the Western Hemisphere with this transfer being seen as a violation of the U.S.’s proclaimed neutrality

Shattering the Two-Term Tradition

• Republicans nominated Willkie for the election of 1940

• Republicans attacked FDR’s so called dictatorship as they were against the New Deal

• Roosevelt ran for a 3rd term as he argued that in a time of potential war, the country needed the experience he had as a political figure

• Roosevelt won the election

A Landmark Lend-Lease Law

• Congress passed the Lend-Lease Bill in 1941 as they were fearful of the potential collapse of Britain which allowed for America to lease arms to democracies that needed them

• Opponents of the Lend-Lease Bill criticized it with it being pitched as program that would allow democracies to win war and keep it away from America

• Hitler viewed Lend-Lease Bill as unofficial declaration of war

Charting a New World

• Fall of France took place in June of 1940

• Hitler invaded the Soviet  Union in June of 1941 with him hoping to take oil and other resources of Soviet Union

• Roosevelt sent military supplies to the USSR

• Roosevelt and Churchill met up and came up with the idea of the 8-point Atlantic Charter at the Atlantic Conference and discussed war goals and promised that there wouldn’t be any territorial changes against the wishes of its people, affirmed right of people to choose their form of government, and declared for disarmament of aggressors

U.S. Destroyers and Hitler's U-boats Clash

• FDR decided to have American warships escort supplies to Britain due to Germany sinking arms shipments

• Congress voted to repeal Neutrality Act of 1939 due to Germany continuing to sink American boats which allowed merchant ships to be legally armed and enter combat zones

Surprise Assault on Pearl Harbor

• Japan had been allied with Germany since September of 1940

• Japan’s war efforts were dependent on trade with America

• Washington started imposing trade embargoes on Japan, in late 1940

• Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor killed 2,348 people on “Black Sunday” December 7, 1941

  • U.S. declared war on Japan on December 8 and Germany and Italy declared war on U.S. with U.S. declaring war in return

America's Transformation from Bystander to Belligerent

• The attack on Pearl Harbor united Americans in their desire to go to war

• Before the attack, the majority of Americans only supported policies that could lead to war

• America didn’t want Britain to fall to Germany and wanted to stop Japan from expanding