Roosevelt carefully navigated around these challenges, first, through an amendment to the neutrality laws that allowed the U.S. to sell goods and war materiel to the allies on a cash and carry basis, and later, through the establishment of the Lend-Lease Act in the spring of 1941, which allowed the president to extend military aid to any nation whose defense was deemed vital to the defense of the U.S. Just a few weeks before he died, Roosevelt bluntly reminded Americans that the U.S. couldn’t build a peaceful world, “unless we build an economically healthy world.” That he largely succeeded in this effort was perhaps best articulated by the preeminent historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who, when asked by TIME magazine to reflect on the forces that shaped the 20th century, responded with the simple observation that the world we live in wasn’t Adolf Hitler’s, Joseph Stalin’s, or Winston Churchill’s world, it was “Franklin Roosevelt’s.” A trade war stands to not only weaken the Western alliance at the very moment when China is on the rise and Europe is facing its first major conflict since the end of World War II, it also comes at a time when—thanks to vast economic inequality—the efficacy of democratic government is being challenged by the similar of populist anti-democratic forces that emerged in the 1930s.
Author: Time
Published at: 2025-04-12 20:08:00
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