In the Hull of the USS Disregard: An Analysis of Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s Execution of Foreign Policy In East Asia and the Precipitation of Armed Conflict Between Japan and the United States

Author

Eric B. Hawkins, Jacksonville State UniversityFollow

Date of Award

Fall 2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA) in History

Department

History & Foreign Language

Committee Chair

Dr. Wesley Bishop

Abstract

The political career of Cordell Hull was motivated primarily by trade policy and the courting of Central America through the negotiation of reciprocal trade treaties that helped stabilize, for the most part, the entire Western Hemisphere. He was an obvious choice for Roosevelt’s cabinet to address economic instability. But why was he chosen for Secretary of State? The Open Door Policy, adopted by many Western nations in East Asia during the early 20th century, was a petri dish primed for the growth of political strife and international conflict. With the warnings from Hull’s predecessor, Henry Stimson, placed on the back burner in the name of popular isolationism, Hull would take office during a diplomatic period that was already experiencing conflict.

Hull appeared to many observers to be unprepared or unwilling to address Japanese treaty violations and aggression. With many State Department functions sometimes falling to Hull’s deputy, Undersecretary Sumner Welles, passivity towards Japanese military aggression was not uncommon. The question arises as to whether Hull was unwilling to intervene in the Manchu-Japanese issue out of fear that Japan might impair American trade interests in East Asia, or whether Hull’s Wilsonian tendencies placed faith in treaties that were held to less esteem by the cultures of East Asia, leaving the United States to stand naively by as the Imperial Japanese Navy grew stronger. This analysis examines the use of unilateral and multilateral trade restrictions as an economic strategy to prevent armed conflict and the implications of Hull’s use of such policies in delaying the United States’ entry into World War II.

In his autobiography, Hull describes his political evolution from “Gladstone liberal” to “Jeffersonian.” He later states that he had studied Wilson’s policies and that “there was no doubt that Wilson’s principles were [the same as his own].” Wilsonian tendencies are best summarized as an ideology that the “United States ought to be the supreme moral factor in the world’s progress.”