The United States of America joined the rest of the world in imperializing non-industrialized countries for economic and political reasons. Europe holds the first imperial nations, of places such as Great Britain, Spain and France, which were motivated by money and power. Imperial nations conquered new lands to boost their national pride and gain economic power. The United States of America displayed a manner of control similar to the European means of imperialism, while not as strict, they still held the same economic motivations and displayed strong control on the Pacific islands through the Platt Amendment. Although the US carried out a lesser form of imperialism, they also contradicted imperial ideology by allowing the Philippines to be able to break away and become independent, something the European countries would greatly resent.
A strong motivation for imperialism was the desire for economic power which the US attained through gaining new markets, raw materials and controlling ports in the Pacific Islands. The Europeans had made a desire for trade prominent and the US was ready to join this endeavor. Gaining new trade routes became very important as explained by Alfred Beveridge stating “Our trade with Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines must be free as between the states of Union, because they are American territory, while every other nation must pay our tariff.” (Beveridge, 1). Gaining new territories meant there was easier access to trade and raw materials