| US Military Dictionary: Good Neighbor Policy |
The policy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt toward Latin America. The term was taken from Roosevelt's first inaugural address on March 4, 1933. The policy reversed a previous attitude of interventionism in the internal affairs of Latin American nations. Specific acts included the repeal of the Platt Amendment authorizing U.S. intervention in Cuba in 1933, and the withdrawal of U.S. Marines from Haiti in 1934.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
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| US History Encyclopedia: Good Neighbor Policy |
The Good Neighbor Policy grew out of the experience of the administrations of Presidents Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929) and Herbert Hoover (1929–1933), but it was formally promulgated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945). In his 1933 inaugural address, Roosevelt asserted, "In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others." The Good Neighbor Policy centered on nonintervention and noninterference. It also came to be associated with trade reciprocity. By the time Roosevelt was elected to the presidency, there was growing Latin American opposition to U.S. military intervention and some searching criticism of U.S. policy in the United States itself.
The Good Neighbor Policy flowed in significant measure from the calculation that U.S. goals in the Caribbean and Central America, in particular, could be better served by strengthening diplomatic and commercial relations instead of engaging in the gunboat diplomacy and military intervention of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, the experience of Henry L. Stimson, Coolidge's special representative to Nicaragua in 1927, and other officials involved in U.S.-Nicaraguan relations in the late 1920s and early 1930s played an important role in the reorientation of U.S. policy in the region after 1933. U.S. marines had operated in Nicaragua from 1912 to 1925, helping to establish and train the Nicaraguan National Guard. Following a brief withdrawal, the United States sent marines back to Nicaragua in 1926 after renewed fighting between political factions there. Washington reacted in particular against the Mexican government's support for the political faction opposed to the pro-U.S. grouping. The second military intervention brought criticism from some politicians in the United States who thought that it undermined Washington's status and power in the eyes of Latin Americans and actually encouraged opposition to the United States in Latin America.
As the 1930s progressed, the Good Neighbor Policy was elaborated via a range of public treaties and private directives in the context of rising U.S. political and economic influence in the region. Despite the stated anti-interventionism of the Good Neighbor Policy, the United States operated within a structure of Pan-American cooperation that was often more interventionist than before. U.S. intervention in the 1930s, however, was carried out by ambassadors, foreign service officers, and economic and military advisers backed up by economic assistance and private capital, instead of by the marines and gunboats of the past. For example, Roosevelt established the Export-Import Bank in 1934 to loan money to U.S. exporters in order to facilitate overseas sales; by the end of the 1930s, it was funding projects throughout Latin America. The United States also negotiated reciprocal trade treaties with a number of Latin American republics that often had important political implications. The countries of Central America, for example, increased their imports from the United States in this period, becoming more dependent on U.S. agricultural products in particular, in exchange for political recognition and support. By the end of the 1930s, Washington had also set up new structures linking the U.S. military with its Latin American counterparts.
The Good Neighbor Policy was, and often still is, viewed as successful for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it strengthened hemispheric relations in the lead up to, and during, World War II. However, Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy also gave direct and indirect support to dictatorships in the region. For example, Roosevelt and his successors provided sustained support for the authoritarian regimes of Anastasio Somoza (1936–1956) in Nicaragua, Rafael Trujillo (1930–1961) in the Dominican Republic, and Fulgencio Batista (1934–1958) in Cuba. This was a major contradiction of the Good Neighbor Policy, and it became more pronounced with the onset of the Cold War after 1945. The formal violation of Roosevelt's pledge of nonintervention, which was understood to mean the actual landing of U.S. soldiers, did not occur until troops were sent into the Dominican Republic in April 1965, where they remained as an occupation force until July 1966. However, in the context of the Cold War, the United States had already instigated or carried out a number of covert interventions in the 1950s and early 1960s. The most well known are probably the Central Intelligence Agency–orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and the unsuccessful invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, both of which involved the training and equipping of exiles and the provision of logistical or air support by the United States.
Bibliography
Gellman, Irwin F. Roosevelt and Batista: Good Neighbor Diplomacy in Cuba, 1933–1945. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973.
———. Good Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 1933–1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.
Green, David. The Containment of Latin America: A History of the Myths and Realities of the Good Neighbor Policy. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971.
Roorda, Eric Paul. The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930–1945. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998.
Wood, Bryce. The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961.
———. The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.
| Politics: Good Neighbor policy |
A United States foreign policy doctrine, adopted by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, designed to improve relations with Latin America. A reaction to the exploitative dollar diplomacy of the early 1900s, the Good Neighbor policy encouraged interaction between the United States and Latin America as equals. In the post-World War II era, however, the United States has often reverted to dollar diplomacy and gunboat diplomacy to impose its will on the countries of Latin America.
| Wikipedia: Good Neighbor policy |
The Good Neighbor policy was the foreign policy of the administration of United States President Franklin Roosevelt toward the countries of Latin America. The United States wished to have good relations with its neighbors, especially at a time when conflicts were beginning to rise once again, and this policy was more or less intended to garner Latin American support. Giving up unpopular military intervention, the United States shifted to other methods to maintain its influence in Latin America: Pan-Americanism, support for strong local leaders, the training of national guards, economic and cultural penetration, Export-Import Bank loans, financial supervision, and political subversion. The Good Neighbor Policy meant that the United States would keep its eye on Latin America in a more peaceful tone. On March 4, 1933, Roosevelt stated during his inaugural address that: "In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others."[1] This position was affirmed by Cordell Hull, Roosevelt's Secretary of State at a conference of American states in Montevideo in December 1933. Hull said: "No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another" (LaFeber, 376). This is apparent when in December of the same year Roosevelt again gave verbal evidence of a shift in U.S. policy in the region when he stated: "The definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention."[2]
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During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the sovereignty of many Latin American nations had been routinely undermined by more powerful countries. Whenever a wealthy nation felt its debts were not being repaid in a prompt fashion, its citizens' business interests were being threatened, or its access to natural resources were being unfairly impeded, military intervention or threats were often used to coerce the respective government into compliance.
Constant interventionism became increasingly unpopular in the United States, however.[citation needed] American anti-imperialist groups felt it was too imperialistic for the United States to conduct foreign affairs without regard for the ramifications of economic-centered ventures such as large investments in Latin American interests. Believers in the American isolationism that dated back to George Washington agreed that a flagrant display of United States power was detrimental,[who?] but for different reasons such as fear over future political effects of angering Latin American and European nations. These groups felt that American intervention in Latin America had bred a culture of resentment and anti-Americanism in the region, which was beginning to manifest in the form of ultra-nationalist and protectionist measures by those countries' governments.[citation needed] In addition, members of the mentioned groups objected to the exorbitant expenses involved in raising armies to help govern Latin American countries.[who?] This opposition increased heavily during the Great Depression, as these isolationist thinkers believed that the money being used for imperialism could be put to better use to help the people negatively affected by the Depression.[who?]
The U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934 offers a prime example of U.S. imperialism. Anger over an aerial bombing of Les Cayes and the killing of an unarmed civilian Marchaterre contributed to the change in American foreign policy[3]
After World War II, the United States began to shift its focus on aid and rebuilding efforts in Europe and Japan. These American efforts largely neglected the Latin American countries, though American investors and business did have some stake in the nations to the South. As a response, the influence of Marxism rose during the Cold War era in Latin America.
The tangible results of the policy included the withdrawal of US Marines from Haiti and Nicaragua in 1934, the annulment of the Platt Amendment, and the negotiation of compensation of Mexico's nationalization of foreign assets in 1937. The policy had a cultural component too, resulting in the radio program Viva America, for instance, and the 1942 Walt Disney film Saludos Amigos.
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 | US Military Dictionary. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Politics. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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