Editing Lend-Lease (section)

==Returning goods after the war==
Roosevelt, eager to ensure public consent for this controversial plan, explained to the public and the press that his plan was comparable to lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose house is on fire. "What do I do in such a crisis?" the president asked at a press conference. "I don't say ... 'Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it' ... I don't want $15—I want my garden hose back after the fire is over."<ref>{{Cite web |title=December, 1940 |url=http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/daybyday/event/december-1940-7/ |access-date=2023-06-27 |website=FDR: Day by Day |language=en-US}}</ref> To which Senator [[Robert A. Taft|Robert Taft]] (R-Ohio), responded: "Lending war equipment is a good deal like lending chewing gum—you certainly don't want the same gum back."

In practice, very little was returned except for a few unarmed transport ships. Surplus military equipment was of no value in peacetime. The Lend-Lease agreements with 30 countries provided for repayment not in terms of money or returned goods, but in "joint action directed towards the creation of a liberalized international economic order in the postwar world." That is, the U.S. would be "repaid" when the recipient fought the common enemy and joined the world trade and diplomatic agencies, such as the United Nations.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/lend-lease |title=Lend-Lease and Military Aid to the Allies in the Early Years of World {{nobr|War II}} |website=Office of the Historian | publisher=United States Department of State|language=en |access-date=March 9, 2018}}</ref>