The correct answer is: "a program of financial assistance from the United States to European countries to help postwar recovery".
The Marshall Plan was an initiative launched by the US in 1948 to help the recovery of Western European countries after WWII. $ 12 billion were sent to rebuild those countries and to boost their economies by rebuilding factories, infrastructures, civil buildings, etc.
The US had adopted the containment strategy, a foreign affairs approach which focused on stopping the spread of communism worldwide. Therefore, rebuilding Western Europe under the influence of the US was beneficial because the Western European powers would side with the US and act as a barrier for containing communism, that was in fact suceeding on the Eastern regions of the continent.
