In President Polk's June 1848 message to Congress, he celebrated the United States victory in the Mexican-American War, declaring the Mexican Cession a large enough amount of land to “constitute an empire." Only two sentences later, Polk celebrates the seizure of good natural harbors as ports to facilitate trade with China. While the story of America's entry onto the world stage as an Empire traditionally starts with the Spanish-American War, the United States already had a history of seeking global influence through their domestic gains. Over the early 1800s, United States foreign policy included strategic access to the market of China. These motivations, however, fly under the radar because the lasting effects of these imperialist actions failed to meet original goals until much later. The Tyler Administration obtained American extraterritoriality and privileged trade status in 1844 China, but the new court system took almost a decade to successfully implement. Similarly, the Mexican-American War yielded great geographic potential to expedite Chinese trade, but the commercial benefits of pushing goods through California could not bear fruit until after the post-Civil War’s completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. In this case, the militarist Polk administration attempted to capitalize on President Tyler’s successful diplomacy with China, seizing Pacific assets to exploit and intensify Chinese market access. While the United States’ annexation of the Mexican Cession expanded opportunity for East Asian commerce, it would be equally accurate to say increased East Asian commerce wetted the palate of Manifest Destiny.