What was the policy of neutrality, or isolation policy of the United States during World War I, all about?

Answer 1

Please do try and say Britain instead of England- violent scots, drunken northern irish and inbred welshies get a bit irate sometimes...

Answer 2

For both WWI and WWII a lot of politicians in the US thought "these are Europe's squabbles and America should not get involved." If you think fighting for Iraq is pretty remote today, try to imagine fighting for England or France when the average person was lucky if they got to visit somewhere outside their state in their lifetime...

In order to stay neutral, the US refused to take sides. However, some groups were pushing for one side or the other to get an advantage.

Eventually, a neutral country has to decide what happens if they try to trade with one side of a war and the other side decides not to allow it. With France, England, and Italy on the same side, it was relatively impossible to get ships through to Germany, so not much trade happened with that side. Germany used its U-boats to try to limit trade from the US to the other side. With its huge resources and industry, it was in an ideal situation to supply goods to either side.

The Americans insisted they should be immune from the war outside the 3 mile limit - on the open oceans, while Germany obviously was not going to wait until a ship was almost at the British shore before attacking it - their U-boats were too vulnerable in coastal waters. Eventually the Germans attacked enough ships the Americans were dragged into the war by public opinion.

There has been some suggestion that the Lusitania (a passenger ship) was indeed carrying weapons for Britain, and Winston Churchill (in charge of the Navy then) was hoping the Germans would try to sink it, and drag the US into the war. Its sinking was one "atrocity" that helped push the US into war.