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If we mix together the last few lessons on American foreign [Girls cooking]

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policy in the early 20th century we should be getting the general idea that

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a America was getting way more influential see the US of A wasn't

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afraid to use force to extend that influence see sometimes becoming a world

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power can get uglier than one of those hairless cats seriously he's avoiding

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sneezing really worth listening one of those things all day all right but [Hairless cat appears]

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getting back to America's New York rise to superpower them when McKinley and

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Roosevelt had both done their parts to ramp up American power abroad but from

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1909 to 1913 President Taft managed to take it even further his waistline his

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mustache his foreign-policy this guy wasn't afraid of extreme President Taft [Taft giving a speech]

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called the foreign policy dollar diplomacy which unfortunately did not

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mean he turned the u.s. into a giant dollar store and sold weird plastic [Girl in store with US flags]

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decoration dollar diplomacy extended Teddy's big stick Roosevelt Corollary

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ideas by saying that America had a right to get involved wherever and whenever it

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saw fit in order to protect its business interest capped also said that it was

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cool for the u.s. to make an unstable place stable why would we bother helping [Taft stood beside leaning tower of pisa]

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shaky countries to stabilize because it's kind of hard to do business with

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the places in chaos like if the u.s. wanted to set up a lemonade stand it

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would be a bad idea to do it in the middle of a riot or maybe not writings [Man with lemonade stand and girls riot]

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hard work you know probably plenty of parched people around so all over the

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world the US was using diplomacy to protect its dollars unfortunately Taft

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found that the rest of the world wasn't all that excited about unchecked [Man digging a grave]

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American intervention in its affairs we're sure somebody out there just

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decide from a lack of surprise task plans of gently financially nudging [Taft nudging family away]

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everybody in the right direction didn't always pan out instead of gentle nudges

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he turned pretty quickly to outright military coercion because well there's

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no better or faster way to make friends right take for example the Taft [Soldier points gun at a man]

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administration's military interventions in Nicaragua well this Central American

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country had gotten on the US as bad side by talking with the jack

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benita in germans about building a canal through nicaragua to rival the one being

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built in Panama America wasn't about to lose its monopoly on passages between

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the Atlantic and the Pacific and it definitely wasn't going to lose it to

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Japan and Germany so when a rebellion broke out in Nicaragua against its [People rebelling]

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president zeliha the tapped administration was quick to send troops

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to lend a helping hand and a bullet or three while not long after the Leo was

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ousted Nicaragua was blessed with continued American military presence and [Military men in Nicaragua]

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political instability for years to come well despite the chaos the US did end up

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getting sole rights to build a canal in Nicaragua which of course it never did

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there's one in Panama yeah but by owning the rights it made sure that nobody else

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could build a rival canal it's kind of like licking the last piece of cake just [Boy and girl staring at piece of cake]

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so nobody else would eat it which ask us is a fate worse than death...

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