German dominance over global trade ensured that the United States was progressively forced out of European, African, and Asian markets. These loans to the Entente from 1917 until the Treaty of Versailles still remain unpaid, with the US government attempting to play a neutral role between the lenders and the Entente. With the collapse of both the British and French governments to syndicalist and socialist revolutionaries, to say nothing of the loss of both of their overseas empires, American companies were suddenly faced with the irrecoverable loss of countless millions of dollars in investments, loans, and other contracts. While the United States ironically prospered while the rest of the world was involved in the Weltkrieg, with American banks and industries supplying the UK, France, and the other Entente Powers, the immediate aftermath of the war proved far more disastrous.
Main Article: Timeline of the United States since 1917