Opponents of the President's foreign policy attacked the destroyer transfer as a grave breach of the American neutrality laws, particularly the act of June 15, 1917, Section 3 of which forbade sending out of the jurisdiction of the United States, when neutral, any vessel built, armed, or equipped as a vessel of war, with any intent that it should be delivered to a belligerent nation. The Attorney General, however, gave an opinion that the law was directed against vessels built to the order of a belligerent, not vessels built previously for the use of the United States. Integrated with this activity, intended for the preservation of the North Atlantic and the defeat of Germany, were the alliance formed with Canada under the Ogdensburg Agreement of August 1940, and the American occupation first of Greenland in April 1941, and then of Iceland in July. The latter two steps followed the passage of the Lend-Lease Act, and foreshadowed full co-operation with the British and Canadians in convoy duty in the North Atlantic.