Ultimately, the agreement accomplished neither. would expand American trade opportunities and deter Japanese expansion. FDR hoped that improved relations with the U.S.S.R.

In 1933, Roosevelt dramatically altered America's relationship with the Soviet Union, establishing official ties between the two nations. In 1934, FDR won passage of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, which allowed him to grant 'most favored nation' trade status to countries with which the United States worked out trade agreements. Roosevelt soon recognized his mistake and his administration worked with England and France to stabilize the international economic system, negotiating monetary agreements with those nations in 1936.ĭespite his early approach to foreign economic policy, FDR quickly demonstrated his internationalist leanings. Unfortunately, this measure further destabilized the world economy. With this latter maneuver, Roosevelt sought to artificially inflate the value of the American dollar in the hope of putting more currency into the hands of cash-poor Americans. He scuttled the London Economic Conference in the summer of 1933 and devalued the dollar by removing the United States from the international gold standard. In rejecting Hoover's approach, FDR essentially embraced a form of economic nationalism and committed the United States to solving the Depression on its own. Hoover hoped that in London the United States and other leading industrial nations would devise a currency stabilization program and pledge its support for the international gold standard. As a result, FDR rejected Hoover's numerous entreaties (delivered during the period between FDR's election and inauguration) that the incoming administration support Hoover's approach to the upcoming London Economic Conference. In contrast to President Hoover, who believed that the Depression arose from international circumstances, Roosevelt believed that the nation's economic woes were largely home-grown. Balancing Internationalism and Economic Problems at Home Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, however, brought the United States fully into the conflict. With the coming of war in Europe and Asia, FDR edged the United States into combat. But throughout most of the 1930s, the persistence of the nation's economic woes and the presence of an isolationist streak among a significant number of Americans (and some important progressive political allies) forced FDR to trim his internationalist sails. Roosevelt, at heart, believed the United States had an important role to play in the world, an unsurprising position for someone who counted Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson among his political mentors. The President, however, certainly did not ignore America's foreign policy as he crafted the New Deal.

Through his first six years in office, Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his time trying to bring the United States out of the Great Depression.

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