Recently, President Donald Trump declared “I do believe I’ll have the honor of taking Cuba.” He mused that, “whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it.” Trump’s increasingly hostile rhetoric has led to a debate over whether the U.S. should invade Cuba and remove the island nation’s government from power.
History suggests that the answer is no. An intervention by the U.S. in Cuba will end badly for both Americans and Cubans. It may prompt a flood of Cuban Americans returning to the island, and the very sort of economic development that, in the past, produced a revolution and ignited a chain of events that led to the current situation.
U.S. intervention in the Caribbean to “bring democracy” or promote American corporate interests is nothing new — and Cuba is no exception.
In 1898, the U.S. took control of Cuba after it won a quick victory in the Spanish-American War. What most Americans do not know is that Spain’s defeat was just the epilogue to a Cuban war for independence that had raged for three years.
The American victory meant that, instead of the independence for which Cubans had been fighting, they became an American colony. Worse, a series of independence wars, dating back to 1868, had left the fledgling Cuban government and landowners bankrupt as the warring factions destroyed property in an effort to break the other’s morale. As a result, many previously wealthy Cubans sold off their properties to American investors.
U.S. business owners and companies poured money into the island, purchasing some of the best properties in the agricultural zones, as well as telecommunications, mining and railroad infrastructure. These purchases gave Americans dominance over the Cuban economy. At one point 70% of Cuba’s foreign trade was with the United States, and U.S. companies and investors owned 90% of the telephone and telegraph industry, 83% of the railways and 42% of sugar production.
U.S. industries, like the United Fruit Company, primarily hired Americans to work in upper management, which limited the upward mobility of Cubans. They built enclaves for their managers that frequently segregated them from the Cuban population-at-large except for the laborers who provided services. Often, they even built infrastructure, including railroads and ports, to extract goods and wealth from Cuba rather than serve the people of the island.
Even worse, as historian Louis A. Pérez, Jr. has eloquently argued, this economy paved the way for a corrupt political system fueled by patronage and pay offs. Engaging in the system became the principal pathway to wealth for Cubans.
Four years after the occupation, in 1902, the U.S. granted Cuba independence — sort of.
The U.S. agreed to withdraw its troops, but only after Cuba signed a treaty allowing the U.S. to militarily intervene when its self-interests were imperiled — the so-called Platt Amendment. Cuba also agreed to lease to the U.S. in perpetuity a vast tract of land around Guantanamo Bay for use as a naval base. The lease could only be voided if both parties agreed to end it, which gave the U.S. veto power.
In 1906, the U.S. demonstrated that Cuba’s “independence” was illusory. Concerned by a faltering Cuban government, the U.S. dispatched troops who would occupy the island until 1909. In 1912, U.S. Marines again invaded eastern Cuba to help put down a local uprising.
The interventions sent the unmistakable message: Cuban officials had to maintain U.S. support. Accordingly, every Cuban government until 1933 sought to please the U.S. government and powerful American economic interests.
When the government did try to boost Cuban industries, it often had to reverse course after Washington balked to protect American corporate interests.
Cubans resented an economy that served U.S. companies well, but not Cubans. They also resented their government for putting American interests ahead of Cuban ones. That led to a powerful backlash typified by the slogan “Cuba for Cubans.” In 1933, Cubans finally revolted.
The uprising produced some economic and political reforms, including the establishment of an eight-hour work day, a minimum wage, guarantees that industries would maintain a minimum percentage of Cuban workers and the abrogation of the Platt Amendment.
However, in the ensuing years, the U.S. meddled in Cuban politics in an attempt to temper the revolutionary fervor. Behind the scenes, the U.S. Embassy worked with political groups to try to ensure a compliant Cuban government. They went so far as to help rig the 1936 presidential election to secure victory for a candidate favorable to military dictator Fulgencio Batista (who ruled the island on several occasions between the 1930s and 1950s) and the military. American officials saw the dictator as a stabilizing force in Cuban politics.
The U.S. also maintained economic dominance over the island by purchasing most of Cuba’s primary export: sugar. That made it impossible even for democratic Cuban governments to undertake the substantial land reform necessary to create economic prosperity for small farmers. Such reform would have taken land from American owners and therefore risked an U.S. boycott of Cuban sugar or other economic sanctions. The loss of their primary market would have devastated Cuban tenant farmers.
In 1952, however, the U.S. made a fatal mistake. After an eight-year absence from power, Batista led a coup against democratically elected president Carlos Prio Socarrás. The Eisenhower administration quickly recognized Batista’s government, failing to grasp that it had little popular support.
Enter Fidel Castro, who quickly built a strong opposition movement, precipitating the Cuban Revolution in 1959. During a visit to the U.S. a few months after his triumph, Castro described his revolution as “humanist.”
Yet, the Eisenhower Administration suspected that Castro was a Communist at heart. The new leader confirmed their worst fears when he presented a modest land reform plan in June 1959 that would distribute unused parcels of land to tenant farmers. This proposal led to a rapid escalation of American sanctions against Cuba. The Cuban government responded by seizing property owned by American business interests. The escalating bellicosity from the U.S. drove Castro into a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. In April 1961, this cycle of escalation culminated in the fiasco that was the Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles, backed by the U.S.
Scholars have long debated whether Castro was a Communist when he took power, but it was not until the day before the Bay of Pigs that he made it official by declaring this is a “socialist and democratic revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble.”, In October 1962, the conflict between the two nations culminated in the Cuban missile crisis, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba. After 13 days of brinkmanship between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the Soviets agreed to withdraw the missiles. As part of the deal, President John F. Kennedy pledged never to invade Cuba.
Over decades, however, memory of the cycle that led to the Cuban Revolution — and the rise of a government hostile to the U.S. — has faded. And that has left Americans and Cubans, once again, at a crossroads.
Cuba, already impoverished by government mismanagement, is being squeezed further by a fuel blockade and new economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. The Trump Administration is seeking a collapse of the Cuban Government. It has not ruled out direct military intervention either to capture former President Raúl Castro (Fidel’s brother) or displace the government.
Yet, the history of Cuban-American relations suggests that such a move would be a mistake. It is easy to envision Miami Cubans flooding back to the island, some with property claims dating back more than 65 years, and others with mucho dinero ready to invest in Cuban tourism and other economic opportunities. Investment sounds like a great idea but as the first half of the 20th century demonstrated, investment from Americans and American interests probably will not focus on what is good for Cubans.
If the U.S. recreates an economy dominated by outsiders like it did after the Spanish-American War, trampling all over Cuban sovereignty in the process, that will fuel resentments and anti-American sentiment, and could sow the seeds of revolution once again. If history is any guide, the result will be catastrophic for Cubans and Americans alike.
Frank Argote-Freyre is a Latin American history professor at Kean University, Argote-Freyre’s first book, Fulgencio Batista: From Revolutionary to Strongman, was published in 2006. He is the author of dozens of scholarly works, journalistic articles, and public policy papers on a wide variety of topics from mental health to housing to public education. He is currently working on his next book, Fulgencio Batista: From President to Dictator.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Inquirer.
