What Do Presidential Visits Say About Our International Standing?
And how has the U.S. changed since the first presidential trip abroad?
President Biden is wrapping up his first international visit and it’s clear that the mission of the trip is to restore relationships with our allies and defend democracy on the global stage.
I wrote more about the ideals and goals behind Biden’s trip in a recent piece for The Bulwark, and how they compare to the first presidential trip abroad.
The context of Teddy Roosevelt’s first foreign visit — the first such trip by a sitting president — presented a very different picture. The United States in 1906 was not yet a superpower, but it was on the rise. The burgeoning empire was eager to protect its interests through intimidation or conquest, if necessary. In December 1823, President James Monroe had promulgated the “Monroe Doctrine,” which declared that the Western Hemisphere was closed to further imperial expansion by European empires. In 1905, Roosevelt added a corollary, which announced that the United States intended to protect the status quo of independent nations in the Western Hemisphere from European interference.
Of course, Roosevelt fully intended the US to be exempt from this corollary, as he had no qualms about using force. Especially in Latin America.
After his tour of Panama, Roosevelt traveled to Puerto Rico. Congress had passed the Foraker Act three years prior, which granted Puerto Rico “unorganized territory” status and gave Puerto Ricans limited constitutional protections. Roosevelt and his administration believed full statehood impossible because Puerto Ricans had to “first learn the lesson of self-control” before they could be trusted with self-government. Secretary of War Elihu Root justified this colonial paternalism: “They would inevitably fail without a course of tuition under a strong and guiding hand.” After returning from his visit, President Roosevelt delivered a speech to Congress reporting on his observations. He agreed with Root’s assessment: “It would have been a very serious mistake to have gone any faster than we have already gone in this direction [of self-government] . . . it would not be safe to make any change in the present system.”
When the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, it symbolized the technological prowess, emerging economic power, and imperial strength of the United States. Roosevelt’s trip eight years earlier had previewed this rise. He was able to create his desired outcomes — the Panama Canal and Puerto Rican dependency — through military force.
Read the conclusions and the rest of the piece on The Bulwark: