Explain Why Us Foreign Policy, During the 1890s, Moved Away from Isolationism. (12 Marks)

294 Words2 Pages
The US foreign policy moved away from isolationism during the 1890s due to commercial reasons since the US wanted to trade with countries such as Hawaii and Cuba for supplies of tobacco and sugar. This links to the expansion of the USA politically to rival with other nations, as the US were then able to build a naval base at Pearl Harbour, in Hawaii under an 1887 treaty. This enabled the US to move away from isolationism. Another reason for the US foreign policy to move away from isolationism was because of the influence of the Yellow Press on President McKinley since William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer publish sensational stories on the Cuba rebellion. On 8th February, Heart’s Journal published a private letter from the Spanish diplomat describing McKinley. McKinley was described as ‘weak’ which meant that the public became irritated because even though most agreed- they resented hearing it from Spanish diplomat. Therefore, the US foreign policy moved away from isolation in the 1890s was due to the influence of the Yellow Press on the McKinley. This reason links to the sinking of the battleship, the Maine in 1898 because this event appeared on the headlines of the Yellow Press. The Newspaper Headlines accused the Spanish. However, McKinley still didn’t get involved in a war since he was not prepared to risk his popularity. Therefore, the incident of the sinking of the Maine meant that the US foreign policy moved away from isolationism. To conclude, the main reason why the US foreign policy moved away from isolationism was due to trade and financial reasons such as the opportunity to trade with other countries, as this would mean that the US would be able to make more money to improve their
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