AP® United States History · Unit 7 · Topic 7.3
The Canal, the Open Door, and the Big Stick
Between 1898 and 1934, the United States used canal-building, an open-trade policy in China, and repeated interventions in Latin America to project power without running old-style colonies.
The Panama Canal solved a problem of distance and a problem of politics. Ships sailing from New York to San Francisco had to go around South America, adding thousands of miles. Colombia, which owned Panama, would not grant the terms the United States wanted, so in 1903 the US backed a Panamanian independence movement, recognized the new nation within days, and got its canal zone. The canal itself works by locks: chambers that fill or drain with water to float a ship up or down 85 feet between the Atlantic, Gatun Lake, and the Pacific, since cutting a sea-level channel through the mountains was not feasible.
In China, the United States wanted trade access without the cost of colonizing or fighting the European powers and Japan already carving out spheres of influence there. The Open Door Notes, issued in 1899 and 1900, asked all those powers to let any nation trade on equal terms throughout China and to respect Chinese territorial integrity. No one signed a binding agreement, but the policy let the US claim equal access while avoiding the expense of conquest.
Closer to home, three presidents pursued the same goal, dominance over Latin America and the Caribbean, through different tools. Roosevelt's corollary to the Monroe Doctrine claimed the right to intervene militarily to preempt European debt collection. Taft's dollar diplomacy swapped soldiers for bankers, pushing American investment instead. Wilson's moral diplomacy claimed to support democracy and reject intervention, yet he sent troops into Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic anyway. Interventions in Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic between 1898 and 1934 trace this pattern across the map.
Key terms
- Roosevelt Corollary
- Theodore Roosevelt's 1904 extension of the Monroe Doctrine claiming the US could intervene in Latin America to preempt European intervention.
- Dollar diplomacy
- Taft-era policy of using American investment and loans, backed by the threat of intervention, to extend US influence abroad.
- Moral diplomacy
- Wilson's stated policy of supporting democratic governments and avoiding intervention, though he intervened militarily several times.
- Open Door policy
- US proposal that all nations have equal trading rights in China and that Chinese territory remain undivided among foreign powers.
- Panama Canal Zone
- The strip of land across Panama the US controlled after 1903 to build, operate, and defend the canal.
Watch it explained
- How it worksWalk me through the Panama Canal's locks lifting a ship 85 feet and setting it back down.
- How it worksHow does the Open Door policy try to hold China open without an American colony there?
- How it worksCompare the Roosevelt Corollary, dollar diplomacy and moral diplomacy as three ways of doing the same thing.
- Worked exampleDraw a map of American interventions in the Caribbean between 1898 and 1934.
Check yourself
End of topic.