Warren g harding presidential campaign

Warren Harding gave his secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes, a free hand in foreign affairs. A leading internationalist, Hughes worked with Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon to design a foreign policy enabling the U.S.

to participate in the world's economic life while retaining a free hand in international relations.

Warren g harding presidential campaign

They hoped to use American banks, such as the John D. Rockefeller-backed Chase National Bank, to replace British financiers in the handling and financing of world trade. Hoover established a corps of commercial attach�s to work with career Foreign Service officers in the pursuit of foreign markets.

Hughes and Hoover used the reciprocity provisions of the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act to secure minor concession on rubber in Malaya and on oil in the Middle East—especially in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and Persia (modern-day Iran).

Hoover and Hughes encouraged seven American oil compa