Question

true or false? the US wanted overseas territories for access to ports?

Answer 1

True. because along with the access ports, came costumers from their territories that would buy U.S. products.:)

Answer 2

Absurdly false. The United States has a large number of excellent deep-water ports on both coasts, and could gain no significant trade advantage to having more. The confusion may come because Great Britain during her imperial days found it very useful to have some good foreign ports -- Gibraltar, Cape Town, Kingston, Hong Kong, et cetera -- to help sustain her naval control of the routes to her various land colonies. In the late age of sail, ships needed ports all over the world in which to refit and resupply, and in the early age of coal, frequent coaling was necessary.

Many people draw false analogies between British imperialism and what there was of American imperialism, perhaps because the two nations share a language, culture, and "world policeman" role at their respective heights. However, British imperialism differed quite a bit from American imperialism, such as it was, both in its essential nature and (much more importantly here) in its means. The Americans never had the need to control large foreign territories at all, and when they finally found the desire for a world-dominating navy, it was already the age of nuclear aircraft carriers, which, expensive as they are, are much cheaper than maintaining crown colonies with good ports abroad.