The correct answer to this open question is the following.
It is true that some historians have argued that United States foreign policy has more often been motivated by economic interests than by the desire to spread democratic and humanitarian ideals around the world.
I mean, it is clear that the United States has many political and economic interests in different parts of the world. This was so notorious in tikes of the Cold Wolrd when it competed against the Soviet Union in the arms race, the space race, and the spread containment of Capitalism/Communism.
To what extent is this argument convincing with regard to United States foreign policy between 1890 and 1919?
Well, to the extent of the following evidence.
1.- President James Polk's ambition to apply Manifested Destiny. He offered money to México to get the territory of California and New Mexico. Mexico rejected the offer and the result was the Mexican-American War in which the US victory resulted in the annexation of the northern Mexican states.
2,. The Spanish-American War victory allowed the US to control the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
3.- The James Monroe Doctrine and the Theodore Roosevelt Corollary.
