Us Imperialism
As the U.S grew, it became evident that expanding to the global level was inevitable. Kofi Annan said “It has been said that arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.” Americans were making more than they could use, growing more crops than they could consume. Just like gravity, globalization was real and inevitable, and couldn’t be stopped. Now, what exactly made globalization so inevitable? We had so many reasons to expand, and we weren’t going to fall short of those goals. The end of the Spanish American War left us with Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines. We realized we were a world power. As a world power, we began to use our power to do the things we wanted. As markets in America came to the maximum point, there was only so much we could do to expand them. Take as an example the tractor industry. Most people in the U.S only needed one tractor, so now everyone has a tractor. Now what? Tractors need to be sold to keep up business, so why not expand it to another country? Another reason for globalization was to spread Christianity. Most people felt that as good Christians, they needed to spread it to keep their brethren from going to hell. As a similar notion, there was also the reason of Social Darwinism. The more “fortunate” Americans felt that it was their duty to help the “poor savages” from other countries. How were we going to expand without the means to? As a strong believer in expansionism, President Roosevelt created the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This not only kept Europeans from their Western hemisphere, but also allowed himself to intervene and “police” the people of Latin America. Now that we had a foothold in Latin America, we were almost free to do what we wanted to. We created the Panama Canal. At first, the Columbians asked them for an exorbitant amount, and the U.S. declined the offer. However, they still wanted that canal. It was a great way to get passed South America. Instead of going around