Cash-and-Carry” – Neutrality promptly became a heated issue in the US. Britain and France urgently needed American airplanes and other weapons, but the Neutrality Act of 1937 raised a sternly forbidding hand. Roosevelt summoned Congress in a special session after the invasion of Poland, and the Neutrality Act of 1939 was passed, which provided that European democracies could buy American materials, but only on a “cash-and-carry” basis. This meant that they would have to transport the munitions in their own ships, after paying for them in cash. America would thus avoid loans, war debts, and the torpedoing of American arms-carriers. Meanwhile, Roosevelt was authorized to proclaim danger zones into which American merchant ships would be forbidden to enter. The un-neutral neutrality act of 1939 gave aid to the Allies, who controlled the Atlantic, while boosting the US economy.
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