Presidential Biographies | Harding Administration - Foreign Issues

Foreign Issues

President Harding's opposition to U.S. membership in the League of Nations (the international organization that came into being at the end of World War I (1914–18) tarnished his reputation, and as a consequence he has often been viewed as an isolationist in his foreign policy. His secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes, however, was very much an internationalist, and the president gave Hughes broad freedom to shape U.S. foreign policy. Although the Senate had refused to approve the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, in 1921 Harding signed a resolution ending the state of war between the United States and Germany. While not joining the League of Nations, the United States did cooperate with some of the nonpolitical activities of the league.

Harding also improved relations between the United States and Mexico that had been damaged during the Wilson administration, and he ended the U.S. military...