New Republican President was in line with people's mood in the country as he was little interested in foreign affairs. He invented the famous policy of «Normalcy»: «not revolution, but restoration», «not internationality, but nationality». The main idea was to meet needs of the nation by returning to past values of non-involvement. He was a good president candidate, especially after Woodrow Wilson who was strongly and uncommpromisingly arguing the need of the USA signing the Treaty of Versailes and joining The League of Nations, however it was refused by congress highliting once again the moof of the country in favour of isolationism.
USA's policy of isolationism was mainly directed on the idea that interests of America come first. For instance, in case of the economy the Republican governments of presidents Harding, Coolodge and Hoover tried to help American businesses by increasing taxes and tariffs on goods from abroad in order to encourage Americans buy goods produced in the USA. This was of course not beneficial for the world trade, however USA was acting «selfish» in order to benefit itself and not other countries.
After The First World War there was unemloyment and for a few years eturned soldiers could not find a job. In order to help them Congress passed a series of laws to limit the number of immigrants such as Espionage Act 1917 and Sedition Act 1918. In 1921 the Emergency Quota Act was passed. Another reason for such reaction was the attitude of people against «aliens», for example Red Scare – fear of revolution and cnanges in the society that revived fears of radical violence in the USA.
Normalcy didn't mean ignoring the world, but not spending too much money and not taking risks. America wasn't completely isolationist as it was still conciderably involved in world affairs and diplomatic activity to protect its trade. For instance the government introduced Dowes Plan in 1924 and Young Plan in 1928 that reduced amount of reparation and increased time for Germany to pay. It was done in order to help German economy to recover so it can trade and also to prevent its failing to communism as it was quite unstable at that period of time.
Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928 was proposed by the American Secretary of State Kellogg and French Minister Briand. America signed it together with other 65 nations and agreed to renounce war and aggression.
Latin America was still under the USA's sphere of influence, therefore America got involved in Nicaragua in 1924 by sending troops to back the government. This was similar to Taft Dollar Diplomacy proving that America was not completely isolationist.
Mexico was the nearest and probably the richest of America's neighbors. America was interested in Mexico because of its oi fields and got involved to protect its personal where disputes in Mexico occured.
The USA also protested about Japanese expansion into China 1928 and got involved in the Far East disputes. Washington Naval Conference 1921-22 was aimed at controlling Japanese power especially was concerned about it's navy expansion. Four Power Pact included Japan Great Britain, France and the USA agreeing that China should stay neutral. Also Five Power Naval Limitation Treaty was a 10 year holiday in battleship building to try and avoid naval arms race.
To sum up it is difficult to say that the USA was 100 per cent neutral at that period after WW1 as even though it tried to be not involved in world affairs, situation with trade and political ambition was still present.
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