What policy measures taken during the interwar period represented a shift from interventionism to isolationism and how did they affect America’s international stance?

After the fists world wide conflict, World War I the US attempted to become less involved in world affairs, not just to protect their economy, but because the population demanded so.

The US refused to join the League of Nations (intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.).

Although President Wilson made preassure within the congress to make the US a member, opposition in the Senate was significant since americans, after learning of the destruction and cost of WW I, opposed to involve their nation in another European conflict which could lead to another devastating war, they perceived the European States as conflict makers and likely to become involved in disputes that would drag the USA to a conflict that didn’t affect their own interests.

The US closed the doors to immigration during the 1920's. Early on the US had excluded Chinese, Japanese, and other Asians, but later the US began to exclude even Europeans, particularly eastern and southern Europeans.

Why did the US, a nation of immigrants, suddenly turn against immigration?

1) Anti-European feelings after WWI;

2) Organized labor believed cheap immigrant labor forced down wages;

3) Railroads and basic industries were well developed by 1920's and industrialists no longer felt the need for masses of unskilled workers;

4) More established Americans descended from northern Europe felt recent immigrants from eastern and southern Europe could never be truly American, and they also saw them as inferior; 

5) Radical political movement and ideologies such as socialism, communism, and anarchism were viewed as European in origin and as potential threats to political stability in the United States.

Immigration Laws:

1) Quota Act of 1921 – limited immigration from each country to 3 % of total number who had immigrated in 1910 and set a yearly limit of 350,000

2) The 1924 quota reduced the quota to 2%, the base year changed from 1910 to 1890. This discriminated against eastern and southern Europeans because many had come to the US after 1890

3) National Origins Act of 1929 – the base year was moved to 1920, but total number was set at 150,000

The War of Tariffs:

The US established very high tariffs on imports to blind their economy from foreign products. Keeping out the cheap foreign products the population was forced to buy the expensive American produced products.

So, as a result to the un-loyal practices from the US, foreign nations responded by raising their own tariffs and excluding American manufactured and farm products from foreign markets.

War Debts Unpaid:

During the WWI the European nations borrowed millions of dollars from the US to bare the war expenses, and they accumulated an enormous debt, about $10 billion dollars, so the US had to lower their interest rates to incentive the fast payment from Europe, but high tariffs in the US prevented Europeans from earning the dollars they needed to pay off the loans.

So they looked to Germany’s war reparation costs as the solution to their debt problems since the total amount of German reparations was $33 billion. Germany however was completely unable to pay the reparations. Germany even attempted to borrow money from European and US banks to pay the reparations, but since the situation was so chaotic they wouldn’t lend any money to Germany.

By 1930 Germany was totally unable to make any other reparation payments.

As we have seen all along history American relations with Latin America had been characterized by US intervention to protect American investments and lives, this under the belief of the Monroe Doctrine.

Off course, Latin American governments were oppressed and uncomfortable by US military intervention and the influence of American business on their economies and policies.

By the early 1930's however relations with Latin America had improved, the State Department declared the Monroe Doctrine would no longer be used to justify US intervention in Latin American domestic affairs, as a result Latin American nations encouraged US investment and gave greater protection to these investments.

The Pact of Paris attempted to settle peace world wide and was accepted by 62 nations.

Somehow, a few years later the US was dragged into war by the Japanese attack to Pearl Harbor and brought the nation’s military hegemony back in the international system, bringing also terrible consequences as the nuclear bomb release.

After this moment in history, the US have had an unstopped involvement in international conflicts, whether as a supporter, as a protector or as an aggressor.

SOURCE: http://www.andycrown.net/isolation.htm and American Studies Class notes by: Louis Monroy and