End of Neutrality Policy
The end of neutrality policy came with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to nations the administration wanted to support.
After repeated attacks by German submarines on U.S. ships, Roosevelt announced on 11 September 1941 that he had ordered the U.S. Navy to attack German and Italian war vessels in the "waters which we deem necessary for our defense". Following the sinking of the U.S. destroyer Reuben James on October 31, many of the provisions of the Neutrality Acts were repealed on November 17, 1941: merchant vessels were allowed to be armed and to carry any cargoes to belligerent nations. The U.S. formally declared war on Japan on 8 December 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor of the previous day; Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. on 11 December 1941, and the U.S. responded with a declaration of war on the same day.
Read more about this topic: Neutrality Acts Of 1930s
Famous quotes containing the words neutrality and/or policy:
“My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy—a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us—which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We are apt to say that a foreign policy is successful only when the country, or at any rate the governing class, is united behind it. In reality, every line of policy is repudiated by a section, often by an influential section, of the country concerned. A foreign minister who waited until everyone agreed with him would have no foreign policy at all.”
—A.J.P. (Alan John Percivale)