User:NickDupree/Latin America in World War II

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The last Marines withdrew from Nicaragua in 1933, and the Marines' nineteen-year occupation of Haiti ended in 1934. The Great Depression made such foreign entanglements financially untenable, and Americans looked to the prospects of increased inter-hemispheric trade to aid recovery.[1] Soon, the U.S. would concern itself with an even more dire task, countering Axis attempts for world domination; with German and Italian fascists competing to influence fledgling republics in Latin America, Washington could ill-afford its previous “Big Stick” foreign policy. Brazilian trade with Germany was at an all time high, and the Ação Integralista Brasileira (AIB) “formed in 1932 as a deliberate imitation of the Fascist parties of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Salazar in Portugal,”[2] had taken over Brazil's government, given themselves unlimited “emergency powers,” and decreed the Estado Novo, “the new state,” along the lines of Portugal's integralist Estado Novo. Brazil was obviously part of Hitler's empire-building strategy; in Congress, a young Fiorello LaGuardia ranted against Brazilian collaboration with Nazi Germany.[3] Chile remained neutral at this time, having strong ties with the German military and an active German-Chilean minority, and still embittered over the Americans' siding against them in the 1879-83 War of the Pacific and the U.S. adoption of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which had hurt Chile economically.[4] And Argentina, despite being a “closet ally” who supplied the Allies with crucial food during the war,[5] was bogged down in a power struggle with its Nazi-sympathizing military, who were devoted to ultra-conservative, virulently anti-Semitic Argentine Catholicism.[6] Ultimately, Argentina didn't end diplomatic ties with Germany until January 1944.[7]

Mexico[edit]

Main article: History of Mexico § Mexico in World War II

Though Mexico and Brazil were the only Latin American nations that sent troops to fight overseas in World War II, it was unclear until the '40s whether either state would side with the United States. In the run-up to World War II, the Cårdenas administration (1934-1940) was just stabilizing, and consolidating control over, a Mexican nation that, for decades, had been in revolutionary flux,[8]. Mexicans were beginning to interpret the European battle between the communists and fascists, especially the Spanish Civil War, through their unique revolutionary lens. “Capitalists, businessmen, Catholics, and middle-class Mexicans who opposed many of the reforms implemented by the revolutionary government sided with the Spanish Falange”[9] i.e., the fascist movement. Lázaro Cárdenas remained neutral. Nazi propagandist Arthur Dietrich and his team of agents in Mexico successfully manipulated editorials and coverage of Europe by paying hefty subsidies to Mexican newspapers, including the widely-read dailies Excélsior and El Universal.[10] The situation became even more worrisome for the Allies when major oil companies boycotted Mexican oil following Lázaro Cárdenas' nationalization of the oil industry and expropriation of all corporate oil properties in 1938,[11] which severed Mexico's access to its traditional markets and led Mexico to sell its oil to Germany and Italy.[12]

Throughout Latin America, Franklin Roosevelt's “Good Neighbor Policy” was necessary at such a delicate time, and in the case of the Mexico, ultimately led to the Douglas-Weichers Agreement in June 1941 that secured Mexican oil only for the United States,[13] and the Global Settlement in November 1941 that ended oil company demands on generous terms for the Mexicans, a rare example of the U.S. putting national security concerns over fairness for American oil companies.[14]

Following losses of oil ships in the Gulf (the Potrero del Llano and Faja de Oro) to German submarines (U-564 and U-106 respectively) the Mexican government declared war on the Axis powers on 22 May 1942. Perhaps the most famous fighting unit in the Mexican military was the Escuadrón 201, also known as the Aztec Eagles. This group consisted of more than 300 volunteers, who had trained in the United States to fight against Japan. The Escuadrón 201 was the first Mexican military unit trained for overseas combat, and fought during the liberation of the Philippines, working with the U.S. Fifth Air Force in the last year of the war.[15]

In the civil arena, the Bracero Program gave the opportunity for many thousands of Mexicans to work in the USA in support of the war effort. This also granted them an opportunity to gain US citizenship by enlisting in the military.

The post-war world, with Russia and the United States locked in a Cold War that threatened to involve, if not destroy, every state on the planet, was not kind to the republics of the Americas. Washington soon divided Latin America simplistically along “with us or against us” red lines, and fear of communist infiltration, both real and used as a political football, was rampant. During the 1952 U.S. Presidential Election, Republican nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower accused the incumbent Democratic party of pushing Latin Americans into the arms of wily Communist agents waiting to exploit local misery and capitalize on any opening to "communize" the Americas.[16] From that point on, the “Big Stick” foreign policy came back to Latin America in various forms and guises until the '90s, with the U.S. consistently backing the same type of elite-led fascist regimes they were trying to undercut during WWII.


But such “Good Neighbor” agreements and “soft power” influence were self-interested in the end, accomplishing the abrupt end of German Fifth Column activities in Mexico, and after the attack on Pearl Harbor, all nine Central American and Caribbean republics declared war on the Axis nearly in unison in a show of seldom-seen Hemispheric solidarity.[17] Unfortunately for Latin America, the United States' inter-American strategy would drastically shift as soon as their interests did.

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ Smith 1996, p. 74
  2. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 145
  3. ^ Smith 1996, p. 76
  4. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 162-165
  5. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 184
  6. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 188
  7. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 162-163
  8. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 17
  9. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 18
  10. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 18-19
  11. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 19
  12. ^ Smith 1996, p. 79
  13. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 21
  14. ^ Leonard 2006, p. 22-23
  15. ^ Klemen, L. "201st Mexican Fighter Squadron". The Netherlands East Indies 1941–1942.201st Mexican Fighter Squadron
  16. ^ Smith 1996, p. 127
  17. ^ Smith 1996, p. 86


References[edit]

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