Lend-Lease Act

The Lend-Lease Act was a US policy that extended material aid to the Allies before and after the United States entered World War II.

While World War II began on September 1, 1939, the United States did not enter the war until after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Before the attack, the United States was officially neutral. For more than a decade, the United States had followed a policy of isolationism in an attempt to prevent the country from being dragged into another foreign war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, recognized the need to support the Allies. Rather than offering loans as it had after World War I, the United States passed the Lend-Lease Act. This act allowed the country to provide food, oil, and military equipment to the Allies as long as the supplies “promote[d] the defense of the United States.”