<P> When the Venezuelan government under Cipriano Castro was no longer able to placate the demands of European bankers in 1902, naval forces from Britain, Italy, and Germany erected a blockade along the Venezuelan coast and even fired upon coastal fortifications . The U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt concern with the threat of penetration into the region by Germany and the increisingly negative British and American press reactions to the affair, the blockading nations agreed to a compromise, but maintained the blockade during negotiations, over the details of refinacial the debt on Washington Protocols . </P> <P> The U.S. president then formulated the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, in December 1904, which asserted the right of the United States to intervene in Latin American nations' affairs . In its altered state, the Monroe Doctrine would now consider Latin America as an agency for expanding U.S. commercial interests in the region, along with its original stated purpose of keeping European hegemony from the hemisphere . In addition, the corollary proclaimed the explicit right of the United States to intervene in Latin American conflicts exercising an international police power . </P> <P> Roosevelt first used the Corollary to act in the Dominican Republic in 1904, which at the time was severely indebted and becoming a failed state . </P> <P> From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox followed a foreign policy characterized as "dollar diplomacy ." Taft shared the view held by Knox (a corporate lawyer who had founded the giant conglomerate U.S. Steel) that the goal of diplomacy should be to create stability abroad, and through this stability promote American commercial interests . Knox felt that not only was the goal of diplomacy to improve financial opportunities, but also to use private capital to further U.S. interests overseas . "Dollar diplomacy" was evident in extensive U.S. interventions in Cuba, Central America and Venezuela, especially in measures undertaken to safeguard American financial interests and from the United States government in the region . During the presidency of Juan Vicente Gómez Venezuela provided a very favorable atmosphere for USA activities at that time petroleum was discovered under Lake Maracaibo basin in 1914 . Gómez managed to deflate Venezuela's staggering debt by granting concessions to foreign oil companies, which won him the support of the United States and the European powers . The growth of the domestic oil industry strengthened the economic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela . In spite of successes, "dollar diplomacy" failed to counteract economic instability and the tide of revolution in places like Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and China . </P>

Us foreign policy towards latin america in the 20th century