The purpose of this research is to examine U.S. policy concerning financial assistance to Latin America, through the various U.S. presidencies, from the administration of Theodore Roosevelt to the present day. The plan of the research will be to set forth the principal elements of economic assistance in succeeding administration, discussing as appropriate the specific policies and programs that have informed such assistance through the years.
As a practical matter, financial assistance to Latin America began in the twentieth century with the accession of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, promulgated in 1904 by President Theodore Roosevelt, did not treat the subject of foreign aid to Latin America specifically, but it laid the groundwork for a whole range of American attitudes toward Latin America that prevailed through the series of policies and programs that were to constitute the substance of foreign aid in the region. The Roosevelt Corollary was one of a series of enunciated policies toward Latin America that came about in the first years of the twentieth century, chiefly in the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. In order to appreciate the tenor of the foreign policy, it is useful to examine the tenor of the president himself.
With his aristocratic background, Theodore Roosevelt assumed power in a nexus with a progressive belief in reform. In this regard, he served as a reform police commissioner of the city of New York and as Civil Service Commissioner under Benjamin Harrison. From the governorship of New York, he went to serve as vice president of William McKinley, finally assuming the presidency in 1901, upon McKinley's assassination. The reformist bent of Roosevelt, which included attitudes favorable to big business as long as the businesses in question could show that they were operating in a way consistent with conventional morality, carried over into the formation of a...