Like most other U.S. presidents before, Roosevelt concentrated his foreign rela- tions on Latin America. In this region, the United States had a ‘heritage of diplo- macy’ and influence appeared to be easiest to exert. But if the president wanted to sell U.S. products to these countries - as the ‘Ex-Im Bank’ and RTA have shown -, he would have to remove the U.S. political and military policies that humiliated and upset the Latin Americans. He would have to continue and intensify Hoover’s efforts to create an atmosphere favorable to U.S. influence. That need increased when Nazi-Germany began luring South American nations with attractive trade deals.[225]

   Roosevelt immediately set about to show how good a neighbor he was. At the 1933 Pan-American Conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, the U.S. delegation under secretary of state Hull „accepted the principle, that no nation ‘has the right to inter- vene in the internal or external affairs of another’. The U.S. Senate unanimously ratified the Montevideo pledge“[226]  (which is astonishing considering that the Senate virtually always wanted to uphold U.S. ‘freedom of action’).

   Cuba, totally dependent on the export of sugar, was hit especially hard by the depression. Riots shook the country and in August 1933 the army toppled dictator Gerardo Machado. But Americans were not pleased with the new ruler Ramón Grau San Martín whom they deemed to be a communist. Some in the State Department cried for intervention but Hull would not give in. Outright intervention would endanger ‘Good Neighborhood’ and necessitate a long-term military presence in the country. Instead Americans talked the young army sergeant Fulgencio Batista into putting a new president into power who was more to the taste of the U.S. Batista later became the Cuban dictator himself. The Americans were criticized for not complying with the Montevideo pledge, but Roosevelt appeased the critics by finally lifting the 1901 Platt amendment, that had contradicted Cuban independence.

   In Mexico, the Revolution proved once more that it was ‘institutionalized’ as suggests the name of the leading PRI party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional). Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized the properties of foreign oil firms after they had continuously rejected to raise wages by 33%. Hull rushed to support the oil firms and demanded $262 million in compensation. But FDR and secretary of the treasury Henry Morgenthau feared that might drive Mexico to seek help from Italy, Japan and Germany. Since they wanted no fascist or imperial Japanese govern- ment involved in the ‘Good Neighborhood’, Roosevelt negotiated to attain a com- promise between the Mexicans and the U.S. companies. In November 1941, an agreement was reached that provided for compensation to the oil firms. U.S.-Mexican relations improved and American economic influence in the country grew as RTA treaties were signed and Ex-Im Bank loans granted.

   The Marines that were still patrolling Haiti were pulled out, a treaty was signed with Panama, that declared cooperative operation and protection of the Panama canal, a $70 million steel plant was built in and with Brazil.

   After World War II had begun in Europe, the effects of ‘Good Neighborhood’ became evident. The foreign ministers of the American nations met in Panama in October 1939 and declared their cooperation in preserving their neutral rights. A year later they announced in the Havana Declaration that they would also defend the French, Dutch and British possessions (i.e. Guyana) against any attacks of the Axis Powers. In 1941, as the United States entered the war, it was joined by nearly
all its Southern neighbors.[227]  The general mistrust and anti-yankee sentiments that were wide-spread in Latin America had changed to an atmosphere of cooperation. ‘Good Neighbor-hood’ was not much better at rooting out dictatorships or ‘banana republics’ but it had at least (mostly) respected other nations’ rights and ensured that the powers hostile to the United States would find no allies in the Western hemisphere.