Dbq On American Foreign Policy

American Foreign Policy

The policies between Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson differed, but all came from the same foundation, of having a desire to make their country well known to other nations, to increase American trade in foreign countries. Some similarities included Roosevelt and Taft wanting to retain peace among foreign countries, and to create a face of American business with Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” and Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy”. A difference that occurred was Wilson opposing imperialism, he wanted to actually stop Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy.
Furthermore, Roosevelt’s Big Stick ideology came from the president referring to “speak softly, and carry a big stick.” By this, he was concluding to retaining peace with nations, but to hold your ground and threaten with power of forces if needed. Roosevelt implemented this policy by establishing it in places like Latin America, where he denounced a

naval blockade enforced by the British and Germans, the blockade began the Roosevelt Corollary. The Roosevelt Corollary was announced in 1904, where it had stated that Venezuela was required to live happy, under the circumstances of maintaining inside of their borders and behaving kindly towards outsiders.
Then to Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy, this decree was a form of American foreign policy where it targeted East Asia and Latin America for its economic powers.

He used this diplomacy to promote American commerce.
However, Wilson disagreed with Roosevelt's and Taft’s imperialist ideations and strategies. Wilson proposed a form of diplomacy called the Moral Diplomacy. Wilson was a believer in the aspect that democracy was important for a nation to prosper. This diplomacy in fact replaced Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy, and promoted democracy and peace in every nation, most importantly in Latin-America, who was undergoing imperialism.
I believe the policy that had the most positive benefits was Wilson’s Moral Diplomacy. Even though it was important for America to spread their commerce to other nations, it was done in such an egoistic way, where Roosevelt and Taft felt like they were more than other countries just because they were still in developing states, so like Roosevelt said, they would speak softly wanting to maintain peace, but only so if the nations under their decrees would

listen.
The Moral Diplomacy positively affected America and more so the world, in a sociological state in where it promoted democracy. With encouraging democracy instead of imperialism, it would shift people’s ways of thinking and create a social structure in where they would believe that imperialism wasn’t okay, and there were many good benefits with the structure of the democratic government. This is important for cultural and social advances, with imperialism there would be one taking over another, and with democracy it would be equally distributed power.
More so, it wasn’t just important to encourage democratic government, but the Moral Diplomacy was a good tool for economic interests. This was a system that guided other nations to prosper in economics, not to invade, instruct, and threaten.