Roosevelt eventually undercut the conference by saying that he had little interest in currency stabilization and by announcing that he would work for economic recovery in other ways. He was strongly influenced by advisers, who had no faith in European central bankers and felt that there was nothing to be gained by tying the U.S. economy to a hazardous international agreement. Unquestionably, Roosevelt's action was made easy by the prevailing isolationism in the United States. Some said the distress of these years was because of disillusionment caused by U.S. participation in World War I. Encouraged by congressional investigations and the works many of writers countless Americans felt that the United States should have stayed out of that conflict. This feeling was so strong that Congress passed a number of neutrality acts, which among other things forbade private American loans to nations that weren't paying their debts to the United States. Roosevelt's views soon changed however. In the spring of 1940, after Germany had conquered Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France Roosevelt convened a special session of Congress and asked it to lift the embargo on the sale of weapons, a provision that primarily hurt the European countries opposed to Hitler and Germany, known as the Allies. After a sharp debate, Congress complied with the request.
Following his reelection in 1940, President Roosevelt moved ahead with the dual policy of building up U.S. defenses while giving assistance to those countries resisting the aggression of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The major legislation was the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, passed over the bitter opposition of the isolationists in Congress and their national organization, the America First Committee. The Lend-Lease Act authorized the president to transfer to victims of aggression, as much military equipment, clothing, and food as could be produced in the United States and acquired by the government.
