LatinAmericanDomination

Essay

Since before the Civil War, the United States has expressed its interest in Latin America via the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine foreboded further European colonization of the Western Hemisphere, thus opening doors for the United States.

During the early 20th century, Venezuela was in a very great amount of debt to foreign nations in Europe. In 1902 both Germany and Great Britain blockaded Venezuela's ports to force them to pay the debts that they owed. President Roosevelt submitted this issue to the Hague Tribunal, where they decided in Venezuela's favor. America felt that they were in a crisis and helped to make a Central American canal. Roosevelt did not want European countries, especially Germany to be meddling in Americas grand project.

The principles of the Roosevelt Corollary were first applied in 1903 when the debts that the newly-formed nation of the Dominican Republic rose so high that they were no longer serviceable. The Dominican Republic placed the United States' Santo Domingo Improvement Company in charge of customs at two of their ports in exchange for debt relief. Certain European powers to which the Dominican Republic owed money claimed that the same sort of deal had been promised to them. President Roosevelt decided that in order to avoid a situation like that of Venezuela's, the United States would need to totally take control of the situation.

The Roosevelt Corollary, also known as the "Big Stick Policy", was an amendment to the Monroe Doctrine, made in 1905, that gave the United States control over Latin America to an extent; if a Latin American government were unable to successfully run their own country, the United States, as opposed to a European power, would then intervene in order to restore stability to that country. President Theodore Roosevelt felt this was necessary during a time where most Latin American governments were new and unstable due to the revolutions that had sprung up across the continent. The belief at the time was that a European presence in Latin America would be a step backwards from revolution. This presidential action was directly related to Roosevelt's popular quote, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick; you will go far."

Over the course of the next few years, the United States involved itself in many different conflicts in Latin American countries. they occupied countries to restore order, crush strikes and keep civil wars from breaking out. They supported a rebellion in panama so that they could get the land for the panama canal, and occupied Cuba first in 1906 to prevent civil war and then again in 1917 to guarantee sugar exports during WWI. In Mexico the marines crushed a strike and searched for outlaw Pancho Villa. In 1915 the US established a protectorate in Haiti that lasted until 1934.

President William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox developed a foreign policy commonly known as "dollar diplomacy". The goal of dollar diplomacy according to Knox was to use private capital to further U.S interests overseas. American companies were manufacturing more than they were exporting. If they were to form trade relationships with Latin American and Asian nations, they would prosper greatly and also hopefully restore the fallen economies of those nations. The "dollar diplomacy" failed to counteract economic instability and the tide of revolution in places like Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and China.

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Source List

http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9079161 http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h948.html http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Loans-and-Debt-Resolution-The-dominican-receivership.html http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/ip/16324.htm http://www.zompist.com/latam.html