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Admin moved page What were the Neutrality Acts and why did the Roosevelt Administration favor them? to What were the Neutrality Acts and why did the Roosevelt Administration favor them
[[File: FDR in 1933.jpg |thumbnail|left|300px|President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933]]__NOTOC__
In the 1930s, the United States Government enacted a series of laws called the Neutrality Acts that were designed to prevent the United States from being becoming embroiled in a foreign war . The acts sought to aid the Allies but they also sought to keep the United States out of World War Two by clearly stating the terms of U.S. neutrality. Although many Americans had rallied to join President Woodrow Wilson’s crusade to make the world “safe for democracy” in 1917, by the 1930s critics argued that U.S. involvement in the First World War had been driven by bankers and munitions traders with business interests in Europe. These findings fueled a growing “isolationist” movement that argued the United States should steer clear of future wars and remain neutral by avoiding financial deals with countries at war. The Roosevelt administration unsuccessfully tried to walk a fine line between aiding US allies and alienating Germany and Japan.
====What did the Neutrality Act of 1935 do?====
The Neutrality Act of 1937 did contain one important concession to Roosevelt: belligerent nations were allowed, at the discretion of the President, to acquire any items except arms from the United States, so long as they immediately paid for such items and carried them on non-American ships—the so-called “cash-and-carry” provision. Since vital raw materials such as oil were not considered “implements of war,” the “cash-and-carry” clause would be quite valuable to whatever nation could make use of it. Roosevelt had engineered its inclusion as a deliberate way to assist Great Britain and France in any war against the Axis Powers since he realized that they were the only countries that had both the hard currency and ships to make use of “cash-and-carry.” Unlike the rest of the Act, which was permanent, this provision was set to expire after two years.
====The Neutrality Act of 1939 permitted the sale of arms on a cash-and-carry basis====
Following [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674034597/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0674034597&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=b2aef87358554e373485d6d8a250e17e Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia] in March of 1939, Roosevelt suffered a humiliating defeat when Congress rebuffed his attempt to renew “cash-and-carry” and expand it to include arms sales. President Roosevelt persisted and as war spread in Europe, his chances of expanding “cash-and-carry” increased. After a fierce debate in Congress, in November of 1939, a final Neutrality Act passed. This Act lifted the arms embargo and put all trade with belligerent nations under the terms of “cash-and-carry.” The ban on loans remained in effect, and American ships were barred from transporting goods to belligerent ports.
====Conclusion====
Overall, the Neutrality Acts represented a compromise whereby the United States Government accommodated the isolationist sentiment of the American public, but still retained some ability to interact with the world. In the end, the terms of the Neutrality Acts became irrelevant once the United States joined the Allies in the fight against Germany and Japan in December 1941.
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* Republished from [https://history.state.gov/| Office of the Historian, United States Department of State]
