Re: Dawes Plan:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Dawes-Plan
Young Plan:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Young-Plan
The, first completed in 1924, was a effort led by the US to temporarily rationalize the reparations demands of the Versailles Treaty. The second, set in 1930, further adjusted the reparations payments to fit with the reality of the 1920s global economy. Both eased the strain on the German economy, giving business and national leaders a better long term basis for planning than the politically designed Versailles Treaty. The global economic slump that arrives just as the Young Plan was written in 1929 rendered all these efforts useless in the short term view of 1931.
The Dawes & Young Plans were part of a effort by the US bank & business leaders to resolve a variety of post Great War economic trends relating to Europe.
... America's refusal to lessen the principal or soften the terms of the loans made to the Entente powers. ...
Rationalizing the Reparations was supposed to assist directly the Entente governments in repaying war loans, and indirectly by allowing a faster European recovery to the pre 1914 economic strengths. Within US banks and industry there was a reluctance to lessen interest or principle. For a variety of reasons the economy of the US 1920s was bubble as much as boom. While business/banking leaders did not understand all the problem they did see that a substantial reduction in loan payments from Europe would substantially weaken the US banks & their investors. At a voter level there were several things working against this. One was the 'story' of the Great War as a product of the Merchants of Death, mega businessmen who profited obscenely from manufacturing munitions ect... A variation of that was the benefactors were the "Jewish bankers". Another was the narrative of the GW being a European set of bad decisions. 'They f...ed it up they can stop whining and pay.' Theres a number of other similar stories. ...and there were other economic factors that at the time were seen as making the loan payments important to the US economy
I would note that in 1939 both Britain and France had substantial reserves of gold, sterling, and foreign currencies & were well recovering fro the Depression. Conversely the US was not as well off in terms of financial reserves, unemployment, industrial output ect... So perhaps the loan payments were not as crippling as has been argued by some folks.