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DOUG JOHNSON: All of these actions did much to improve the opinion of Latin American leaders about the United States.

However, the most important test of Franklin Roosevelt's new policies was in Mexico.

 
The Mexican government seized control of oil companies owned by investors in the United States. A number of influential Americans wanted the president to take strong action. He refused. He only agreed to urge the Mexican government to pay American investors for the value of the oil companies.

 
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: As United States relations with Latin America improved, its relations with Britain got worse.

Britain blamed Franklin Roosevelt for the failure of an international economic conference in nineteen thirty-three. It also felt the United States Congress was unwilling to take a strong position against international aggression by other nations.
 

 
Some British leaders had so little faith in Roosevelt that they proposed seeking cooperation with Japan instead of the United States.

New leaders in Japan, however, soon ended this possibility. They presented Britain with such strong military demands that the British government gave up any idea of cooperation with Japan.

 
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: One big question in American foreign policy in the nineteen thirties concerned the Soviet union.
 

 
The United States had refused to recognize the government in Moscow after the Bolsheviks took control in nineteen seventeen. Yet Franklin Roosevelt saw the Soviet Union as a possible ally, if growing tensions in Europe and Asia burst into war.
 

 
For this reason, he held talks in Washington with a top Soviet official. In nineteen thirty-three, he officially recognized the Soviet government.

DOUG JOHNSON: President Roosevelt hoped recognition would lead to better relations. But the United States and the Soviet Union did not trust each other. They immediately began arguing about many issues.
 

 
Within two years, the American ambassador to Moscow urged President Roosevelt to cut diplomatic relations with the Soviets.

Roosevelt refused. Relations between the two countries became even worse. Yet Roosevelt believed it was better to continue relations in case of an emergency. That emergency -- World War Two -- was just a few years away.

 
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Economic issues played an important part in American foreign policy during the early nineteen thirties. In nineteen thirty-three, a major international economic conference was held in London.

 
France and Italy led a movement to link the value of every nation's money to the price of gold. American delegates to the conference rejected the idea. They argued that it would slow America's recovery from the great depression. As a result, the London conference failed.
 

 
Although President Roosevelt opposed linking the value of the American dollar to the price of gold, he did not oppose international trade. During the nineteen thirties, his administration negotiated new trade agreements with more than twenty countries.