Saludos Amigos

English

In early 1941, before U.S. entry into World War II, the United States Department of State commissioned a Disney goodwill tour of South America, intended to lead to a movie to be shown in the US, Central, and South America as part of the Good Neighbor Policy. Disney was chosen for this because several Latin American governments had close ties with Nazi Germany, and the US government wanted to counteract those ties. Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters were popular in Latin America, and Walt Disney acted as ambassador. The tour, facilitated by Nelson Rockefeller, who had recently been appointed as Coordinator of InterAmerican Affairs CIAA, took Disney and a group of roughly twenty composers, artists, technicians, etc. from his studio to South America, mainly to Brazil and Argentina, but also to Chile and Peru.The film itself was given federal loan guarantees, because the Disney studio had overexpanded just before European markets were closed to them by the war, and because Disney was struggling with labor unrest at the time including a strike that was underway at the time the goodwill journey began. ........

Source: Wikipedia