Roosevelt Corollary

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(Redirected from Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine)

A political cartoonists' commentary on Roosevelt's "big stick" policy

The Roosevelt Corollary was a substantial alteration (called an "amendment") of the Monroe Doctrine by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Roosevelt's extension of the Monroe Doctrine asserted the right of the United States to intervene to stabilize the economic affairs of small nations in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international debts. The alternative was intervention by European powers, especially Britain and Germany, which loaned money to the countries that did not repay. The catalyst of the new policy was Germany's aggressiveness in the Venezuela affair of 1902-03.(Marks 1979) The intervention took the form of takeover of the customs collection, and disbursement of the funds to the debtors and claimants. The policy was unpopular abroad (Ricard 2006).

Mitchener and Weidenmier (2006) show the economic benefits to the small countries. The average debt price for countries under the US "sphere of influence" rose by 74% in response to the pronouncement and actions to make it credible. That is, their bonds rose 74% because buyers now believed they would be repaid. The increase in financial stability reduced internal conflict because political factions could not count on winning control of the national treasury if they won a civil war. The program spurred export growth and better fiscal management, but debt settlements were driven primarily by gunboat diplomacy.

Roosevelt's December 1904 Annual message to Congress declared:

All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

Presidents cited the Roosevelt Corollary as justification for U.S. intervention in Cuba (1906-1910), Nicaragua (1909-1911, 1912-1925 and 1926-1933), Haiti (1915-1934), and the Dominican Republic (1916-1924).

In 1928, under President Calvin Coolidge the Clark Memorandum stated that the U.S. did not have the right to intervene unless there was a threat by European powers, reversing the Roosevelt Corollary. In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt further renounced interventionism and established his "Good Neighbor policy," thus tolerating the emergence of dictatorships like that of Batista in Cuba or Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

Glickman, Robert Jay. Norteamérica vis-à-vis Hispanoamérica: ¿oposición o asociación? Toronto: Canadian Academy of the Arts, 2005.
Marks III, Frederick W. Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
Nancy Mitchell. The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America (1999),
Mitchener, Kris James and Weidenmier, Marc. "Empire, Public Goods, and the Roosevelt Corollary." Journal of Economic History, 2005 65(3): 658-692. Issn: 0022-0507 Fulltext: in Swetswise
Ricard, Serge. "The Roosevelt Corollary." Presidential Studies 2006 36(1): 17-26. Issn: 0360-4918 Fulltext: in Swetswise and Ingenta