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American Imperialism: Major Causes Of World War I

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American Imperialism
One of the major causes of World War I was imperialism. The United States started annexing, or adding territories, and expanding its control over other nations throughout the time period. We were associated with imperialism over Hawaii, Latin America and the Philippines. There was societal, economical, and political impacts from imperialism. The United States was justified in annexing foreign territories and expanding its control over other nations during the late 1800s and early 1900s
Societal issues impacted imperialism in The United States in a positive way. They attempted to spread Christianity throughout other countries. If you do not have christian beliefs, this would be dreadful. On the other hand, if you do practice …show more content…
The U.S. attacked the Hawaiian government by saying their monarchy was wrong and they, again, needed to switch to our way of democracy. At the time, this was ironic. We took their freedom by giving them their freedom. Yes this is accounted for, but joining our democracy ended up working out for them. It is unknown whether or not Hawaii’s monarchy would have held strong throughout the years, so all that matters is the change worked. When the U.S. attempted to annex the Philippines we did it out of our helpful nature. Annexing the Philippines is justified, because we did this in belief that the islanders could not govern themselves against threatening European powers (The Philippines). Switching rolls, when Colombia rejected our Hay-Herrán Treaty of 1903, the Panamanians desire for independence grew stronger. We helped them revolt by blocking the sea-lanes with U.S. ships. This made it where Colombia could not defend their country. The U.S. and Panama had joint control over the Panama Canal from 1979-1999. This is justified because there was no harm caused and they owed us for helping when they only had about 50 citizens revolting Colombia (Tindall). Gaining an overseas empire would enable us to play a stronger role throughout the …show more content…
We built other countries typical infrastructure out of the kindness in our hearts. We gave them the things needed for a successful society. Some say this was only for our own personal advantage for if they attempted to get rid of our influence. They make it as if we built these things for them just to say “look at what we built you, you can’t get rid of us.” This is horrible to say about your own country and some just do not try to see the bright side. This is justified because we built this stuff. They then started to become strong enough to make it without us. The natural response would be “look what we built you.” This is not cruel; this is just facts. The Mckinley Tariff gave subsidies to american sugar cane growers and put a tax on any non american made sugar. This doesn’t seem rude because if your country needs money, why tax your citizens when you have the power to tax others? The U.S. gains lots of money from Hawaii’s fruits and sugar. Money was not the only reason for annexing Hawaii, but it can definitely be a justification considering we are in so much debt as a nation. The economic justification for the Panama Canal is it now costs less to ship to Asia. Instead of going all the way around South America, we can go through the canal. This saves fuel to be used elsewhere and, the obvious, saves on money for the fuel. Another justification would be fewer small countries would die out if they received help

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