Foreign policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration

This article is part of a series about Franklin D. Roosevelt
Early life Family Paralysis State Senator Secretary of the Navy 1920 Cox–Roosevelt campaign 44th Governor of New York Governorship 32nd President of the United States First & second terms, 1933–1941 Third & fourth terms, 1941–1945 Timeline Transition Inaugurations first second third fourth First term First 100 days New Deal Glass-Steagall Act WPA Social Security SEC Fireside Chats Second term Supreme Court Packing National Recovery Act 1937 recession March of Dimes Third term World War II Attack on Pearl Harbor Infamy Speech Atlantic Charter Japanese Internment Tehran Conference United Nations D-Day Second Bill of Rights G.I. Bill Harlan F. Stone Supreme Court nomination Wiley Rutledge Supreme Court nomination Fourth term Yalta Conference Declining health Death and state funeral Presidential campaigns 1932 primaries convention campaign election 1936 primaries convention campaign election 1940 primaries convention campaign election 1944 primaries convention campaign election Electoral history Legacy Criticism Foreign policy New Deal critics Civil rights record Presidential Library Memorial Depictions
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The foreign policy of the United States was controlled personally by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first and second and third and fourth terms as the president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. He depended heavily on Henry Morgenthau Jr., Sumner Welles, and Harry Hopkins.^{[citation needed]} Meanwhile, Secretary of State Cordell Hull handled routine matters. Roosevelt was an internationalist, while powerful members of Congress favored more isolationist solutions in order to keep the U.S. out of European wars.^{[citation needed]} There was considerable tension before the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The attack converted the isolationists or made them irrelevant.^{[citation needed]} The US began aid to the Soviet Union after Germany invaded it in June 1941. After the US declared war in December 1941, key decisions were made at the highest level by Roosevelt, Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, along with their top aides. After 1938 Washington's policy was to help China in its war against Japan, including cutting off money and oil to Japan. While isolationism was powerful regarding Europe, American public and elite opinion strongly opposed Japan.

The 1930s were a high point of isolationism in the United States. The key foreign policy initiative of Roosevelt's first term was the Good Neighbor Policy, in which the U.S. took a non-interventionist stance in Latin American affairs. Foreign policy issues came to the fore in the late 1930s, as Nazi Germany, Japan, and Italy took aggressive actions against other countries. In response to fears that the United States would be drawn into foreign conflicts, Congress passed the Neutrality Acts, a series of laws that prevented trade with belligerents. After Japan invaded China and Germany invaded Poland, Roosevelt provided aid to China,^[1] Britain, and France, but public opinion opposed use of the American military.^[2][3] After the Fall of France in June 1940, Roosevelt increased aid to the British and began a very rapid build-up of air power. In the 1940 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated Republican Wendell Willkie, an internationalist who largely refrained from criticizing Roosevelt's foreign policy.

Unlike his first two terms in office, Roosevelt's third and fourth terms were dominated by war issues. Roosevelt won congressional approval of the Lend-Lease program, which was designed to aid allies warring against Germany and Japan. After Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, Roosevelt extended Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union as well. In Asia, Roosevelt provided aid to the Republic of China, which was resisting a largely successful invasion by the Japanese. In response to the July 1941 Japanese occupation of southern French Indochina, Roosevelt expanded a trade embargo on Japan. After attempting to re-open oil exports, Japan launched an attack on the U.S. fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. The United States became belligerent in December 1941 after Congress responded in kind to declarations of war by Japan, Germany, and Italy. The leading Allied Powers the U.S.. Britain, China, Soviet Union, and (by courtesy) China. The Allies agreed on a Europe first strategy, but in practice the American war effort focused on Japan before 1943.^[4]

Britain and the U.S. began the campaign against Germany with an invasion of North Africa in late 1942, winning decisively in May 1943. Meanwhile, the United States won a decisive victory over Japan in the Battle of Midway and began a campaign of island hopping in the Pacific Ocean. In 1943, the Allies launched an invasion of Italy and continued to pursue the island-hopping strategy. The major Allied leaders met at the Tehran Conference in 1943, where they began to discuss post-war plans. Taking up the Wilsonian mantle, Roosevelt also pushed as his highest postwar priority the establishment of the United Nations to replace the defunct League of Nations. Roosevelt expected it would be controlled by Washington, Moscow, London and Beijing, and this Big Four resolve all major world problems. By the time of Roosevelt's death in April 1945, Germany and Japan were collapsing rapidly.^{[citation needed]} Both soon surrendered and became the responsibility of the Foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration.