Imperialism In Latin America

Joyce Li

Ms. Weisman

U.S. Survey UH4

1 February 2018

Imperialism has been a continuous policy throughout time, and the idea of imperializing others come from the desire to extend a country’s superiority. The United States began imperializing in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It was not until then did they seek for land and natural resources to improve their economy. Furthermore, this led to imperialism in Asia and Latin America. Although some historians claim that the U.S. intervened in other territories due to humanitarian reasons, overall the U.S. was primarily motivated by economic justifications, as evidenced by obtaining cheap labor in Puerto Rico and collecting goods from the Dominican

decided to help aid countries with foreign debt in order to collect taxes. When Ulises Heureaux, the leader of the Dominican Republic, was assassinated, he left the country in debt due to his fraudulent conducts such as spending more money than the country could afford on modernization and his own delights. President Theodore Roosevelt saw this as an opportunity to “assume responsibility for the country’s foreign debts on the condition that the United States be permitted to control the collection of Dominican import duties. As a result, the United States acted as a customs collector for two years until the foreign debts were paid” (U.S. Foreign Policy on the Dominican Republic). Additionally, President William Howard Taft also passed the policy “Dollar Diplomacy” which influenced the U.S. to invest in the Dominican Republic. This led to discontent Dominicans because the U.S. was profiting from them while investing a bit, and they saw this as imperialism. All these actions taken by the U.S. are considered examples of economic desires. Based on this case study money was the U.S.’s intentions. They agreed to cover for Dominican Republic’s debt in order to expand trade and

tried to implement their religion on to other countries, but it was just one tiny goal the U.S. had. The main motive for the U.S. was to benefit economically from imperializing and expand trade. A clear example of economic motives was in China. When other nations such as France, Britain, and Russia began trading with China, the U.S. as well thought they should get involved. They proposed a policy called the “Open Door Policy” which implemented that all countries had equal access to China. China was upset about this policy and they were extremely “fed up with foreign imperialists” (China’s Open Door Policy). This discontent from China nationalists started the Boxer Rebellion and the “The foreign powers came together with an international force and brutally crushed [them]” (China’s Open Door Policy). If the U.S.’s main intention was to just promote religion they did not need to use violence to solve this issue. Additionally, they came together with other countries for one purpose and that was to pass the Open Door Policy to allow everyone to access China. Thus humanitarian reasons for imperialism is invalid because the U.S. wanted to trade with China to improve their economy. Overall, out of the three theories, humanitarian, defense, and economic, economic is the main reason for American imperialism. This is shown in many case studies like Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and China. The U.S. looked for opportunities to gain economic benefits