lend-lease

In US history, an act of Congress passed in March 1941 that gave the president power to order ‘any defense article for the government of any country whose defense the president deemed vital to the defense of the USA’. During World War II, the USA negotiated many lend-lease agreements, notably with Britain and the USSR.

The aim of such agreements was to ignore trade balances among the participating countries during the war effort and to aid the Allied war effort without fanning isolationist sentiments.

Lend-lease was officially stopped in August 1945, by which time goods and services to the value of $42 billion had been supplied in this way, of which the British Empire had received 65% and the USSR 23%.