The Good Neighbor Policy

The Good Neighbor Policy during the 1930’s and 1940’s was a policy of non-intervention between the United States and Latin America. This was the United States’ attempt to regain trust and economic relations with Latin America. The Good Neighbor Policy had good intentions of no longer intervening with Latin American policies and governments.

During the 1930’s, the Great Depression effected the U.S. and Latin American nations. After the stock market crash the U.S. went through an economic depression which would in turn affect Latin America. President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to help repair the Latin American economies with the Good Neighbor Policy.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, he dedicated part of his foreign policy to a policy of the good neighbor. President Roosevelt realized that U.S. intervention was both expensive and ineffective .The Good Neighbor Policy was to create a better economic status for the Latin American nations. Roosevelt withdrew troops and financial advisors, along with relinquishing treaty agreements the Latin Americans found obnoxious such as the Platt Amendment . He also repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary . These retractions gave some Latin Americans trust in the United States and that their intentions were good.

The issue of non-intervention was discussed during the Convention of the Rights and Duties of States. The convention made all states juridically equal and that no state had any right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another state .Secretary Hull also made the condition that the renunciation of intervention was qualified by the “law of nations as generally recognized” . This would suggest that only countries that were legitimately recognized by the U.S....

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... It would be looked at as a bluff by the U.S. to the Latin Americans because of later interventions in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The U.S. may look at is an inevitable failure to be able to cooperate with Latin America.

To conclude the Good Neighbor Policy was a policy of non-intervention that was intentionally good for Latin America. It had the right tools and motivations but lacked overall commitment by future presidents and politicians of both the U.S. and Latin America.

Works Cited

Coerver, Don M., and Linda B. Hall. Tangled Destinies: Latin America & The United States. Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1999.

Holden, Robert H., and Eric Zolov. Laitn America and the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Rabe, Stephen G. The Killing Zone : The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.