The foreign policy of the Theodore Roosevelt administration covers American foreign policy from 1901 to 1909, with attention to the main diplomatic and military issues, as well as topics such as immigration restriction and trade policy. For the administration as a whole see Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He modernized the U.S. Army and expanded the Navy. He sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project American naval power. Roosevelt was determined to continue the expansion of U.S. influence begun under President William McKinley (1897–1901). Roosevelt presided over a rapprochement with the Great Britain. He promulgated the Roosevelt Corollary, which held that the United States would intervene in the finances of unstable Caribbean and Central American countries in order to forestall direct European intervention. Partly as a result of the Roosevelt Corollary, the United States would engage in a series of interventions in Latin America, known as the Banana Wars. After Colombia rejected a treaty granting the U.S. a lease across the isthmus of Panama, Roosevelt supported the secession of Panama. He subsequently signed a treaty with Panama which established the Panama Canal Zone. The Panama Canal was completed in 1914, greatly reducing transport time between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Roosevelt's well-publicized actions were widely applauded.
The Open Door Policy was the priority of Secretary of State John Hay towards China, as he sought to keep open trade and equal trade opportunities in China for all countries. In practice, Britain agreed but the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire kept their zones closed. China had five times the population of the U.S., but outside the few treaty ports (controlled by Europeans), there was vast poverty. American schemes to build railways went nowhere; the one American product which the Chinese did buy was kerosene from Standard Oil for their lamps.Ernest R. May and James C. Thomson, eds, American-East Asian Relations: A Survey (1972) pp 131–172.Michael H. Hunt. "Americans in the China Market: Economic Opportunities and Economic Nationalism, 1890s-1931." Business History Review 51.3 (1977): 277-307.
Roosevelt admired Japan but American public opinion grew increasingly hostile. Roosevelt made clear to Tokyo that Washington respected Japan's control of Korea. He reached the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907, effectively ending Japanese immigration in the hope of cooling bad feelings.Charles E. Neu, An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906–1909 (1967) pp. 310–319.
Roosevelt sought to mediate and arbitrate other disputes, and in 1906 he helped resolve the First Moroccan Crisis by attending the Algeciras Conference. His vigorous and successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War, won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.
Background
McKinley was assassinated in September 1901 and was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. He was the foremost of the five key men whose ideas and energies reshaped American foreign policy: John Hay (1838-1905); Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924); Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914); and Elihu Root (1845-1937).Warren Zimmermann, First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power (2002) online
Beliefs In the analysis by Henry Kissinger Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to develop the guideline that it was America's duty to make its enormous power and potential influence felt globally. The idea of being a passive "city on the hill" model that others could look up to, he rejected. Roosevelt, trained in biology, was a social darwinist who believed in survival of the fittest. The international world in his view was a realm of violence and conflict. The United States had all the economic and geographical potential to be the fittest nation on the globe.Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (1994( pp 38-40). The United States had a duty to act decisively. For example, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, America had to prevent European incursions in the Western Hemisphere. But there was more, as he expressed in his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: the U.S. had to be the policeman of the region because unruly, corrupt smaller nations had to be controlled, and if United States did not do it, European powers would in fact intervene and develop their own base of power in the hemisphere in contravention to the Monroe Doctrine.Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp 38-39
Roosevelt was a realist and a conservative.Stephen G. Walker, and Mark Schafer, "Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as cultural icons of US foreign policy." Political Psychology 28.6 (2007): 747-776 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2007.00602.x He deplored many of the increasingly popular idealistic liberal themes, such as were promoted by William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialists, and Woodrow Wilson. Kissinger says he rejected the efficacy of international law. Roosevelt argued that if a country could not protect its own interests, the international community could not help very much. He ridiculed disarmament proposals that were increasingly common. He saw no likelihood of an international power capable of checking wrongdoing on a major scale. As for world government: I regard the Wilson–Bryan attitude of trusting to fantastic peace treaties, too impossible promises, to all kinds of scraps of paper without any backing in efficient force, as abhorrent. It is infinitely better for a nation and for the world to have the Frederick the Great and Bismarck tradition as regards foreign policy than to have the Bryan or Bryan–Wilson attitude as a permanent national attitude.... A milk-and-water righteousness unbacked by force is...as wicked as and even more mischievous than force divorced from righteousness.Kissinger, Diplomacy p. 40:
On the positive side, Roosevelt favored spheres of influence, whereby one great power would generally prevail, such as the United States in the Western Hemisphere or Great Britain in the Indian subcontinent. Japan fit that role and he approved. However he had deep distrust of both Germany and Russia.Kissinger, pp 40–42.
Organization Roosevelt was a highly energetic actor who personally made practically all the major foreign policy decisions. He had strong views on foreign policy, as he wanted the United States to assert itself as a great power in international relations. Anxious to ensure a smooth transition, Roosevelt kept Secretary of State John Hay in office; Hay's health failed in 1903, although he remained in office until his death in 1905.John Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt (2014) pp 409–442. Another holdover from McKinley's cabinet, Secretary of War Elihu Root, had been a Roosevelt confidante for years, and he continued to serve as President Roosevelt's close ally.Morris (2001) pp 22-23 Root returned to the private sector in 1904 and was replaced by William Howard Taft, who had previously served as the governor-general of the Philippines.Ralph Eldin Minger, William Howard Taft and United States Foreign Policy: The Apprenticeship Years, 1900-1908 (1975). After Hay's death in 1905, Roosevelt convinced Root to return to the Cabinet as secretary of state, and Root remained in office until the final days of Roosevelt's tenure. Taft increasingly became Roosevelt's trusted troubleshooter in foreign affairs, and his designated presidential successor in 1908Morris (2001) pp. 394-395 Roosevelt was very close to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, but otherwise largely kept his distance from congressional leaders, much to the annoyance of those senators who were accustomed to discussing diplomatic issues with President McKinley. Much of the trouble was blamed on Secretary of State John Hay, who had poor relations with the Senate in general and Lodge in particular. Hay and Lodge fought bitterly over the principle of commercial reciprocity with Newfoundland.Dennett, John Hay (1933), pp 420–429.George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt (1958) p. 161, 163, 191–192.
Big Stick diplomacy
Roosevelt was adept at coining phrases to concisely summarize his policies. "Big stick" was his catch phrase for his hard pushing foreign policy: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Roosevelt described his style as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis." Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, who was bombastic and incautious in his public remarks, Roosevelt emphasized quiet discussion with all the interested parties to come to a consensus decision before he acted, The "big stick" generally referred to his highly visible naval buildup, and also to newspaper-based public opinion, when it became agitated on a foreign policy issue.
As practiced by Roosevelt, big stick diplomacy had five components. First it was essential to possess serious military capabilities—the Big Stick—that forced the adversary to pay close attention. At the time that meant a world-class navy. The US Army remains quite small. The other qualities were to act justly toward other nations, never to bluff, to strike only if prepared to strike hard, and the willingness to allow the adversary to save face in defeat.
Roosevelt generally followed the speak softly adage with one curious exception. He later claimed that he had personally resolved the Venezuela crisis of December 1902 by issuing an ultimatum to Germany that threatened war in a matter of days. In 1916 at a time Roosevelt was vigorously denouncing President Woodrow Wilson for being too weak to battle German aggression in World War I, Roosevelt claimed that he had threatened Germany with an immediate war back in 1902. Historians have repeatedly combed all the possible published and unpublished sources in the United States and Europe and have found no evidence whatever of any actual ultimatum being issued or discussed in Washington or Berlin. Roosevelt says he was threatening war against a major power but at the time he did not consult with his State Department, War Department, Navy Department, his generals, his admirals, nor leaders of Congress.See Dexter Perkins, A history of the Monroe doctrine (1963) pp 217-222. online Germany did pull back, in respond to the flareup of anti-German public opinion in American newspapers, and did pay attention to the build-up of the U.S. Navy, so it followed Great Britain in quickly accepting arbitration.H. W. Brands, TR: The last romantic (1997) pp 467–471.Nancy Mitchell, "The height of the German challenge: the Venezuela blockade, 1902–3." Diplomatic History 20.2 (1996): 185-210.Pref>Paul S. Holbo, "Perilous Obscurity: Public Diplomacy and the Press in the Venezuelan Crisis, 1902-1903." Historian (1970) 32#3 pp 428-448. online
Great power politics