World War II caused by each country’s response to the Great Depression

It is widely known that the Great Depression of 1929 triggered World War II, but I wanted to know more about its causes.
To do so, we must first consider the causes of the Great Depression. As discussed in class, the United States, which had suffered little damage in World War I, had become the creditor nation for the war expenditures and reparations of European countries. This led to a booming U.S. economy and a disproportionate increase in capital investment to the actual situation. However, European countries, which were the main export markets, set up protective tariff regimes in order to restore their economies. Therefore, products made with that capital investment could only be sold to the domestic market. Thus, the Great Depression was triggered by the motivation of capitalists, who gradually realized that there was an oversupply, to sell their shares before the value of their capital fell.

As noted on page 87 of Friedman’s “A Very Short Introduction: American Business History,” Hoover, then president, tried to revive the economy through market forces alone, in accordance with laissez-faire, the Republican Party’s policy. However, the economy was not able to recover. In 1930, he passed the Smoot-Hawley Act, which raised tariffs on agricultural and industrial goods. This was effectively a protective tariff system.

Other European countries also introduced block economies, whereby trade was conducted only between colonies and their own countries to prevent the outflow of their own currencies. Thus, it can be said that the U.S., with its large home market, and European countries with colonies found a temporary way out of the Great Depression. However, European countries without colonies, Germany and Italy, were unable to introduce a block economy, and Germany in particular was in economic distress because the issue of reparations for World War I had not yet been resolved. In the Far East, Japan’s economy was growing at the same rate as the other major powers, but without colonies, Japan was helpless in the face of the Great Depression. Thus, the world was divided into the Axis and Allied Powers, which were established by Japan, Germany, and Italy. The Second World War began with Germany’s invasion of Poland in Europe and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in the Pacific.