Issued in response to the struggling European countries, the Marshall Plan would allow the U.S. to give financial assistance to certain countries. This was done to prevent communism from rising in countries like France and Italy, whose economies where suffering after WWII. It was agreed in July 1947 that the U.S. would spend $12.5 billion, over four years, in sixteen different nations. In order to receive financial assistance you had to have a democratic government.