Chapmann Chen

H6X
Mr. Pratt

4. Examine and evaluate the Good Neighbor policy in theory and in action.

The Good Neighbor Policy phrase which was coined by President Herbert Hoover was an
attempt by Hoover to improve relationships with Latin American countries. Its main principle
was that of non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of Latin America. It
also reinforced the idea that the United States would be a “good neighbor” and engage in
reciprocal exchanges with Latin American countries. Hoover was on a goodwill trip to Latin
America soon after his. The intention of the new policy was to mend relations with Latin
American countries after they criticized The Coolidge Administration during the Sixth Pan-
American Conference in Havana in 1928 for armed interventions in Haiti and Nicaragua. U.S.
relations with Latin America were at an all-time low. During The Hoover Administration,
policies were put into place to improve relations, such as the Clark Memorandum of 1930 in
which the State Department retracted Theodore Roosevelt's Corollary to the 1823 Monroe
Doctrine, which declared that only the United States could collect debts owed to foreigners by
countries in the Western Hemisphere. The Clark Memorandum did not, however, repudiate the
right to intervention itself. Also, Hoover's withdrawal of troops from Nicaragua and planned
removal from Haiti improved relations with Latin America.

When Franklin Roosevelt became President of the United States he promised to improve
relations with Countries in Latin America. His first actions towards improving relations with
Latin America was by assigning Secretary of State Cordell Hull to carry out his vision of this
policy, which was to improve the ties between those countries and the United States to ensure
non-hostile neighbors south of its borders. In addition, the policy sought to secure Latin
American cooperation in the world war effort by maintaining the flow of petroleum and other
raw materials. Hull's policies of low tariffs improved the economies of the Latin American
countries that had been hurt by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, especially in Cuba where low
prices on sugar had previously made it impossible to sell to the United States. Also the Panama
Canal Treaty was re-negotiated in 1936. In addition, when the United States restrained from
intervening when Mexico expropriated foreign oil companies in 1938, both countries were able
to arrange an amicable settlement. In other efforts, Hull convened the Seventh Montevideo-Pan-
American Conference in 1933 in Uruguay, where he committed to a policy of non-intervention
into the affairs of Latin American countries. As evidence of his commitment, U.S. Marines were
removed from Haiti in 1934 and Congress signed a treaty with Cuba nullifying the 1903 Platt
Amendment, which authorized United States occupation of that country.

As relations between America and Latin America improved they both meet at
conferences and agreements and even agreed to be allies. At the Eighth Pan-American
Conference, held in Lima, Peru, Hull managed to obtain a resolution reasserting a united front
against possible Axis aggression against American nations during the war, even though most
Latin American countries at the time were ruled by generals who admired European fascism. At
the Conference for the Maintenance of Peace in Buenos Aires in 1936, the American nations
agreed to mutual consultation if there was a security threat to any of the nations within the
hemisphere. Great strides had been made to improve relations between the United States and
Latin America during World War II so that after the war's end, the U.S. was able to persuade
Latin American countries to join the Organization of American States, a regional organization
under the United Nations that was largely funded by the United States.

After the war, policies that related to Latin American countries were beginning to wear
down. Previous progress made in those relationships when a newly structured economic power
restored the monetary and financial strength of industrial countries, but largely ignored Latin
America. The Good Neighbor Policy and the Pan-American "war propaganda" were further
abandoned when the United States ignored free trade overtures and viewed Latin America
merely as a supplier of raw materials and tropical foodstuffs. As a result, Brazil began to restrict
imports and to subsidize domestic industries, while drawing foreign companies to invest in Latin
America caused friction with the United States, whose control over those economies began to
slip.

In early 1940, Japan began to fortify the Marshall Islands which lie in the central Pacific
between Hawaii and the Philippines. The threat to American communications between Hawaii
and the Philippines caused President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1940 to order the United
States Pacific Fleet to move its main Pacific base from California to Pearl Harbor in the
Hawaiian Islands. The move was designed to demonstrate the naval power available to the
United States in the Pacific region, and hopefully, to act as a deterrent to Japanese aggression
against American, British and Dutch colonial possessions in East Asia. The move was not
without significant risk, however, because it placed the American Pacific fleet within striking
distance of Japan's powerful navy.

9. Discuss the events and developments that led to war between the United States and Japan in
1941.

The Germans and Italians wanted the pact to convey a clear warning to the United States
that it would face war with Japan if it entered the war in Europe on Britain's side. On September
27, 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact. The Japanese did not tell their
new allies that they were already preparing for war against the United States. This agreement
recognized Japan's self-assumed role in establishing a "New Order" in East Asia, and provided
for mutual assistance should any one of the three powers be attacked by another country not
already involved in the European conflict or the war in China.

The Japanese Prime Minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, wanted to avoid war with the
United States if possible. He knew it was necessary to protect Manchukuo from attack by the
Soviet Union while Japan was attacking America, thinking it be wise, Japanese Foreign Minister
Matsuoka visited Moscow and signed an anti-aggression pact with the Soviet dictator Josef
Stalin on April 3, 1941 and this protected Japan from any possible attacks from Russia. Konoye
appointed Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura as ambassador to the United States in April 1941, and
instructed him to attempt to reach an agreement with the Americans that would recognize Japan's
predominance in East Asia. Tension between Japan and the United States increased dramatically
when Japan seized French Indo-China (now Vietnam) in July 1941. Japanese troops poured into
Indo-China, and the Japanese military began preparations to attack the Philippines and British
and Dutch colonial possessions in South-East Asia. President Roosevelt responded to Japanese
aggression in Indo-China by placing an embargo on the sale of American oil and petroleum to
Japan, and freezing Japan's assets in the United States. The British government and the Dutch
government-in-exile followed the lead of the United States in imposing economic sanctions on
Japan. By August 1941, Japan faced an almost total embargo on the oil and rubber it needed to
continue its undeclared war on China, and to pursue further military aggression in South-East
Asia.

Japan was placed in a very difficult position, with the western economic embargoes. It
limited the import of oil into Japan which made relations between and Japan only worst. The
Americans Administration bargained with Japan and insisted that Japan withdraw its invading
troops from China and abandon its plan for forced incorporation of countries in its Greater East
Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Americans were not insisting that Japan withdraw from its
puppet state Manchukuo, which had been the former Chinese territory of Manchuria. However,
militarist hard-liners in Japan were not prepared to give ground on China or their proposed New
Order in East Asia. Once again, economic sanctions had failed. These measures only succeeded
in hardening further the attitudes of Japan's militarists towards the United States. The hard-line
militarists in Tokyo wanted war not a diplomatic settlement, and they replaced Prime Minister
Konoye on October 18, 1941 with a hard-line militarist, General Hideki Tojo, who was eager for
war with the United States.

On November 5, 1941, the Japanese government threatened to attack the United States
unless they accepted all of the demands that the Japanese proposed by November 25, 1941. Upon
failure to meet the deadline, the Japanese would to seize America's Philippines and resource-rich
British and Dutch colonial possessions in South-East Asia. These countries would then be
incorporated into the Japanese empire. All of these countries except the Philippines were either
rich in raw materials, especially oil and rubber, needed by Japan's aggressive war machine or in
food needed by Japan's fast-growing population. The United States Pacific Fleet based at Hawaii
posed the only significant threat to Japan’s aggressive territorial ambitions. To eliminate this
risk, the Japanese government decided to launch a surprise air attack on the United States Pacific
Fleet at its Pearl Harbor base on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. Following that President
Roosevelt addressed Congress and asked that America enter the war. The Congress agreed and
America entered into World War II.