This decision in itself had been a shock to Clement Attlee's struggling Labour government which had deluded itself that America would continue lend-lease during the period of Britain's rehabilitation following the terrible destruction caused by the War. This despite the growing anger of American industrialists and politicians who said that America was providing Britain with the opportunity to grow its export trade - particularly because of Empire (later Commonwealth) preference agreements - thereby cutting American throats at American expense. The U.S. had then demanded that no benefit from any element of lend-lease would be transferred to the export business, a promise the British found hard to implement in that how do you separate what raw materials and tools are used for domestic and export production from the same plant?
Anyway the U.S. scrapped lend-lease almost overnight, which had been keeping Britain's factories turning and its people fed, and Attlee was forced to beg for a loan which America supplied at a high (bearing in mind the capital involved and the time it would take for the investment to bear fruit) rate of interest - 2% - and Britain's economic recovery, while helped in the very short term, has suffered over the following period because of the high repayment obligations.
America has been one of Britain's greatest friends - and vice versa - for certainly most of the 20th century - but, it can be argued, never lost sight of its hard headed sense of business during that period. Today as the Treasury signs its last Bankers Draft to the U.S. it might be worth remembering, lest our nation (and particularly its Prime Minister!) becomes too idealistic, that even the best of political friends come at a price.
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