Tensions in American-Turkish relations during World War II

In this study, an effort has been made to question the conventional wisdom of the United States not having a foreign policy vis-à-vis Turkey, which was independent of that of Britain's during the World War Two years. Not only will this thesis set out to prove that the United States had an independent foreign policy toward Turkey during those years but it will show why that was so. It is the contention of this thesis that The United States followed an Open Door Policy after its first acquisition of Spain's colonies following its victory in the Spanish-American War in 1898. It also started to apply that policy toward the Ottoman Empire the same year as the first Open Door note in 1899. It also very much followed that policy during World War Two, albeit under extraordinary circumstances. It was able to do that by passing the Lend-Lease Act on March 11th, 1941. That act provided a boom for American exports and increasing the dependence of Allied countries on the American economy. That was not entirely true for neutral Turkey because of its economic relationship with Germany. However, once Turkey cut its economic and diplomatic ties with Germany during the course of 1944, it was left with only one realistic option for rebuilding its economy in lieu of a possible state-managed autarkic drive: sovereignty-eroding United States economic assistance. The Lend-Lease program and the commensurate increase in trade, the collapse and defeat of the Nazis, and American political pressure would pave the way for Turkey eventually opening up its economy following the war. It started to liberalize its economy in 1946 and was finally integrated into an American-dominated global economic order with the first receipt of Marshall Plan Aid in 1948. The final American drive to successfully apply the Open Door economic policy to Turkey, after approximately forty years of mostly unsuccessful efforts, unquestionably had its start during the World War Two years.