The U.S. abandoned all pretense of neutrality with passage of the Lend-Lease Act of 1941.
Lend-Lease = pre-WW2 program for the US to supply weapons to nations fighting Germany, Italy, and Japan
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The Lend-Lease Act was debated for two months before it was passed.
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It is possible he was troubled by something he'd read in the paper earlier that morning— Lend Lease Diapers Used as Turbans by African Sheikhs!†
(source)
Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine, 2002