Foreign affairs became a more prominent issue by 1935. Italy, under a fascist regime led by Benito Mussolini, invaded Ethiopia, earning international condemnation. In response, Congress passed the first of a series of Neutrality Acts. The Neutrality Act of 1935 required Roosevelt to impose an arms embargo on all belligerents in any given foreign war, without any discretion left to the president. Though he privately opposed the Neutrality Act of 1935 and its successors, Roosevelt signed the bills order to preserve his political capital for his domestic agenda. In 1936, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, though they never coordinated their strategies. That same year, Germany and Italy formed a weak alliance through the Rome-Berlin Axis agreement. Roosevelt saw the threat that these rising powers posed, but focused instead on reviving the U.S. economy during the early part of his presidency. Hitler and other world leaders, meanwhile, believed that the U.S. would be reluctant to intervene in world affairs. They saw the U.S. withdrawal from Latin America, the Neutrality Acts, and the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act, which promised independence to the Philippines after a ten-year transition period, as indicative of the strength of isolationism in the United States.