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2. DETERMINING CENTRAL

IDEAS What was the central idea
of the Lend-Lease Act? How is it a
departure from previous policy?

User JohnnyAW
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Answer:

The Lend-Lease Act stated that the U.S. government could lend or lease (rather than sell) war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the United States.” Under this policy, the United States was able to supply military aid to its foreign allies during World War II while still remaining officially neutral in the conflict. Most importantly, passage of the Lend-Lease Act enabled a struggling Great Britain to continue fighting against Germany virtually on its own until the United States entered World War II late in 1941.

Step-by-step explanation:

In the decades following World War I, many Americans remained extremely wary of becoming involved in another costly international conflict. Even as fascist regimes like Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler took aggressive action in Europe the 1930s, isolationist members of Congress pushed through a series of laws limiting how the United States could respond.

But after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and full-scale war broke out again in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that while the United States would remain neutral by law, it was impossible “that every American remain neutral in thought as well.”

User Oldovets
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