Havana Conference (1940)

The Havana Conference was a conference held in the Cuban capital of Havana in July 1940.

In the first years of World War II, as Germany began to take over countries throughout Europe, many colonies in the New World found themselves orphaned, such as those owned by Netherlands, Denmark and France. At the conference the United States thus agreed to share with its neighbors the responsibility of protecting the Monroe Doctrine. The Havana Conference marked a dramatic change in the use of the Monroe Doctrine. No longer was it to be used solely for economic dominance and imperialism by the United States, but in conjunction with its twenty neighbors, to defend the collective security of the Western Hemisphere.