 Germany increased its influence in Haiti in this period, with a small community of German settlers wielding disproportionate influence in Haiti's economy.The German influence prompted anxieties in the United States, who had also invested heavily in the country, and whose government defended their right to oppose foreign interference in the Americas under the Monroe Doctrine.In December 1914, the Americans removed $500,000 from the Haitian National Bank, but rather than seize it to help pay the debt, it was removed for safe-keeping in New York, thus giving the United States control of the bank and preventing other powers from doing so.