At the start of World War I, as in most of modern American history, US sentiment was divided between those who believed in neutrality or isolationism and those who held that the US had a duty to intervene in world affairs. Theodore Roosevelt was among the latter group. Although he was in many respects a progressive, his politics did not align with the modern sense of that word. He held racist, imperialist views about “civilized” versus “uncivilized” countries, the former being white and Western European in origin. He and his supporters considered it the duty of “civilized” nations like the US to conquer less-developed nations as a form of support.

Roosevelt embarked on many international projects, most notably the building of the Panama Canal. Many countries had sought to build a canal connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. Through a series of exploitative political dealings involving France, Colombia, and other Central American countries, Roosevelt rapidly led this project to completion, and the canal opened in 1914. The Panama Canal project was the largest-scale example of the Roosevelt administration’s strategy throughout Latin America. They used the region as a bargaining tool to gain power against both local governments and European forces that were competing for control of the area.