GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY

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.

Mark T.Berger

See alsoCaribbean Policy ; Cuba, Relations with ; Dominican Republic ; Guatemala, Relations with ; Latin America, Relations with ; Nicaragua, Relations with .

Good Neighbor Policy The term “Good Neighbor,” a diplomatic cliché, gained substance in U.S. relations with Latin America during the 1930s.Fundamentally a tactical shift motivated by a desire for access to trade and resources, the new policy abandoned older conceptions of America's international police power—specifically, military intervention in the Caribbean region—in favor of more subtle methods to win over Latin Americans.

Lacking a European threat (the traditional U.S. justification), Republican administrations in the 1920s initiated the move away from intervention. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's explicit “Good Neighbor policy,” proclaimed at Pan American conferences in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1933 and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1936, complied with Latin American demands by adopting noninterventionist principles. American protectorates in Cuba, Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic were modified or dismantled. The policy yielded significant dividends as the United States responded to the Great Depression and World War II. These included fifteen reciprocal trade agreements with Latin American countries; the encouragement of “hemispheric solidarity” in opposition to Germany, Italy, and Japan; and the formulation of new “cultural initiatives” to bring U.S. perspectives to Latin American audiences.

When faced with the Axis threat, the Western Hemisphere nations tried to insulate their region against aggressive acts and later to coordinate wartime strategies. When the United States entered the conflict after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, eighteen of the Latin American republics followed its lead either by declaring war or breaking diplomatic relations with enemy states. Only Chile and Argentina remained neutral. Such unanimity avoided regional divisiveness and assured U.S. access to Latin American resources. Viewed in the context of World War II, the Good Neighbor policy proved its worth.
See also Expansionism; Foreign Relations: The Economic Dimension; Foreign Relations: The Cultural Dimension; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with Latin America; Foreign Trade, U.S.

Bibliography

Irwin F. Gellman , Good Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 1933–1945, 1979.
Frederick B. Pike , FDR's Good Neighbor Policy, 1995.

Mark T. Gilderhus

Good Neighbor Policy (USA) A term used to describe the US Latin America policy of Secretary of State Cordell Hull during the first term of President F. D. Roosevelt. Based on the principle that no country has the right to intervene in the affairs of another, it reversed the Roosevelt Corollary. It was implemented by the withdrawal of US marines from such countries as Haiti and Nicaragua and the abrogation of the Platt Amendment, which had given the US government a quasi-protectorate over Cuba. While it created much better relations between the USA and Latin America, the USA continued to follow Latin American affairs closely, and US influence reached a new high during and after World War II.

pan-Americanism

Good Neighbor Policy The popular name for the Latin American policy of the early administration of President F. D. ROOSEVELT. It was implemented by the withdrawal of US marines from Latin American countries and the abrogation of the Platt Amendment, which had given the US government a quasi-protectorate over Cuba. The Montevideo Conference (1933) declared that “no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another”.

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.