Theodore Roosevelt's Latin American Policy
Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States and declared the United States would take over any Latin America country that did not run its government in the way the US wanted it to.
As President, he wanted to increase the influence and prestige of the United States on the world stage and make the country a global power.
After the Spanish American war in 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States.
Between the end of the Spanish-American War and the dawn of the Great Depression, the United States sent troops to Latin American countries thirty-two times. It used the Roosevelt Corollary, or addition, to the Monroe Doctrine to justify intervention. In the corollary, Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed that the United States, because it was a "civilized nation," had the right to stop "chronic wrongdoing" throughout the Western Hemisphere.