US is not isolationist in 1920s

The US pursues an active role in Europe after the Great War: it does not raise tariffs and it cancells allied war payemnts, which were essentially coming from Germany. Trade and US investment help Germany avoid economic meltdown and a strong German economy prevents extermists from coming to power. There is no economic depression in the 30s and no WWII. But a cold war develops between USSR and Europe.
 
What is your POD that changes the composition of the US Senate such that it approves the cancellation of war debts?

After all this is exactly what France and Britain requested so they could excuse Germany of its reparations payments to them.
 
:confused: Was the Great Depression so simply caused by Germany's war reparations? Didn't the overexuberant stock market and subsequent collapse have a lot more to do with it?
 
It wasn't the only cause but it was a big part of it. Without sky high tariffs and canceling the war debts would help trade immensely which helps avert the worst the depression.
 
It wasn't the only cause but it was a big part of it. Without sky high tariffs and canceling the war debts would help trade immensely which helps avert the worst the depression.

I would agree. The high debts meant that virtually the entire world economy was dependent on the US so when that went down it dragged just about everywhere else with it. With the changes proposed the more efficient world economy might have avoided it totally. Or even if the US has suffered a depression like OTL while it would have shaken the rest of the world it wouldn't have pulled it all down. Then economic activity in Europe and Asia would have helped pull the US out of the slump. [Still won't have been pleasant, especially in the US of course but better than the historical and much better for the rest of the world, especially since you probably avoid WWII. Might have earlier global pollution and other such problems with a richer world however].

Danm! Nearly forgot to say. However, while an attractive scenario for a probably better world I think that it would be distinctly ASB getting the US to either cancel war debts or move to free trade in ~1920 let alone both.

Steve
 
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Wilson and Lloyd George agree that Germany must be strong as a counterweight against Soviet Union and France (French power being a British concern). Both want to maintain some sort of balance of power in Europe. Wilson is not as ambitious in his points, and makes concession on League of Naitons in return for smaller reparation requirements on Germany. Wilson returns to the US and goes on a tour selling his vision for the future to the public. He does not suffer a stroke and runs for a third term. He receives a great deal of support from industrialists eager to make more money on trade with an economicaly healthy Germany.
 
It would take a far stronger president to tilt things in this general direction: Harding was clearly not the man to do that (it's often said, without a lot of exaggeration, that if he could, he'd turn back the clock to McKinley's day), nor was Coolidge after his son died in 1924. And by the time Hoover was in the White House, the time had long since passed.

You'd likely need TR to have lived and been elected in 1920, or perhaps a TR protege. It's hard to say what James Cox might have done: there's not much of a foreign relations platform for the governor of Ohio.
 
If Germany gets a desicive victory before an armistice is called, and a few Senators have their pictures taken with sioled doves, isolationism can be avioded.
 
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