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American Foreign Policy

Decent Essays

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little” (Roosevelt, 1937).
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke these words at his second inaugural address in 1937, no American could have predicted how crucial they would soon become. It was not until ten years later that it became more necessary than ever to “provide…for those who have too little” in the form of foreign aid.
At the end of World War II, Europe was in economic shambles. Western European nations’ basic food and industrial supplies were dwindling so rapidly that a post-war Paris conference determined “…the total European foreign exchange deficit for the four-year period …show more content…

Russia then began a vigorous propaganda campaign in order to convince Europeans to back out of the program, making it difficult for the United States to present the program positively (Central Intelligence
Agency). Even once adopted, the plan faced a plethora of administrative questions. Each
European nation was to propose domestic programs that would require international funding, subject to the review of other participating nations. This structure ran the risk of creating either a quid-pro-quo system by which each nation would blindly approve the other’s programs or a competitive state in which few programs would gain approval.
However, despite these hurdles, the Foreign Service rose to the challenge to make the
Marshall Plan a success. First, the plan was popularized through a media initiative that gave a fitting reply to the Soviet propaganda movement to destabilize the program. A media effort headed by the United States produced more than 250 short films catering to an international audience, convincing both Americans and Europeans of the effectiveness of the …show more content…

Agency for International Development). Also known as the Point Four Program, it outlined a framework for further international development assistance efforts that could revitalize foreign economies, decrease poverty, and strengthen
American diplomatic relations. Agencies such as the Mutual Security Agency and International
Cooperation Administration were formed to carry out the Point Four Program; all such agencies required representatives in foreign countries to work with policymakers and determine what kind of aid each nation needed and how much of it the United States could provide. These developed into the United States Agency for International Development. Created when President John F.
Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, this new agency now addresses both economic and social issues in all corners of the globe, helping rebuild war-torn or poverty stricken nations from the ground up with health, education, human resource, and other nonmonetary aid packages (U.S. Agency for International Development). Such programs would not be in place today if the Economic Recovery Program had not been the primary catalyst in their

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