Buying some of our goods does not constitute payment* (or gratitude), especially if we had to extend huge loans on easy payment terms (the Marshall Plan) for them to do it, and we were the sole source for the machine tools they had to buy in order to rebuild (or not buy and become agrarian societies). Europeans imposed stiff tariffs on US goods during the reconstruction period, and we went along with it. Even today, there are all kinds of non-tariff barriers on American imports, which is why US manufacturers had to set up factories in Europe to sell to Europeans. The upshot can be seen in the EU-US trade balance - we've run a trade deficit averaging $80B with the EU for the past decade.
* If doing business with a creditor is considered repayment, maybe I should suggest to my local bartender that my continued patronage constitutes payment for my yard-long bar tab.
I didn’t say it was repayment. I’m saying we benefited financially by the Marshall Plan to a much greater extent than we would have had we not created such a huge market for our goods. By granting and loaning money to Western Europe for reconstruction, we created a huge market for American goods that we would not otherwise have had, at least not until many, many years later. I’m not saying all that profit went into the public coffers as repayment, but billions upon billions sloshed around the American economy that we otherwise would not have collected. Income is income. Much of it ended up from whence it came, which was the pockets of the American public instead of in the public treasury. In my opinion, that’s a GOOD thing.
As those countries rebuilt, they developed banking and currency systems for investemnt. Those domestic investments generated greater demand for American goods, and most of the income to America was generated through European domestic investment, not simply as a rebate of our loans and grants. That demand and income to America generated millions of jobs through investment in industry which generated even more demand for goods for our domestic market. We got our money back exponentially, it just got paid to the U.S. market instead of directly back to the government.
Now, if you think the reconstruction of Europe and Japan did NOT fuel the American economy to a degree not seen since the Industrial Revolution, then we should just end our dialogue.