Why did the United States abandon its neutrality and enter World War 1 in 1917?

The
United States's motivations to break the declaration of neutrality and enterwere rooted in
economic and strategic motivations. The United States had given several Allied countries huge
financial loans, and as events progressed, the United States became more concerned with ensuring
the success of the Allied countries and their abilities to pay back the loans. The United States
also had a vested interest in the ending of the war, as Britain and France had enacted a trade
blockade against several Baltic and mid- or Eastern European neutral countries. This move by the
Allied countries angered US merchants, but US public sentiment was generally much more
sympathetic to the British and French than to Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Turkey.

In 1915, a merchant ship that left from New York, the Lusitania,
was sunk by German submarines. Public opinion in the United States became even more hostile
toward the Central Powers and more drawn to the idea of US military involvement. In
1917,...