“I think I could do anything I want with it,” Donald Trump said about Cuba in mid-March. But he was far from the first US president to eye the island, historian Michael Zeuske of the University of Bonn notes. US interest in Cuba stretches back to the mid-19th century.
Cuba is not for sale
When Cuba was still a Spanish colony, Thomas Jefferson declared in 1820 that the United States should seize any opportunity to annex the island. Three years later, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote that political “gravitation” would pull Cuba into the North American Union if it were separated from Spain. In 1848 President James K. Polk offered Spain $100 million for Cuba; Spain reportedly replied it would rather sink the island than sell it. A few years later US diplomats drafted a secret plan claiming the right to take Cuba by force if Spain refused to sell, though that plan never materialized.
The ‘apple’ is ripe
These ambitions were rooted in the Monroe Doctrine, James Monroe’s 1823 declaration that the Americas were for the Americans. While aimed at curbing European colonialism in the hemisphere, the doctrine also coincided with US expansionist aims — and Cuba lay just 160 km (99 miles) off Florida. In 1898, amid a long Cuban struggle for independence, the United States established a heavy military presence, claiming it was protecting US citizens. The explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898 — which killed more than 250 sailors — provided a pretext for war. Whether the blast was an accident or an attack has never been proven, but the US declared war on Spain.
Cuba becomes a de facto protectorate
The Spanish-American War lasted about four months and ended with Spain losing Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and control over Cuba. The US did not annex Cuba into the union — partly because Senator Henry M. Teller opposed annexation — but neither did it grant full sovereignty. US troops would not leave unless Cuba accepted the Platt Amendment, which had to be written into the Cuban constitution. The amendment allowed the United States to influence Cuba’s foreign policy, national debt and public health decisions, to intervene militarily, and to establish naval bases — the most enduring being Guantánamo Bay. US economic control followed: by 1926 American firms controlled roughly 60% of Cuba’s sugar industry, and US investors poured money into Havana’s hotels, bars and casinos.
The mafia’s long reach
Prohibition in the United States in the 1920s drove tourists to Cuba and brought organized crime with them. Havana became a center for gambling, trafficking, laundering and prostitution. US crime syndicates and associates of dictator Fulgencio Batista profited handsomely. Batista had close ties to mobster Meyer Lansky, who was a key partner and informal adviser.
The Cuban Revolution and its aftermath
Widespread poverty and inequality fueled unrest. Fidel Castro’s initial 1953 uprising was crushed, but his 26th of July Movement waged guerrilla warfare that culminated in Batista fleeing in 1959. Castro at first sought a decent relationship with the United States, but Washington showed little interest in negotiating with a socialist revolutionary. Castro nationalized US-owned refineries and sugar plantations and turned toward the Soviet Union.
In 1960 President Dwight D. Eisenhower imposed a trade embargo. In 1961 Cuban exiles, backed covertly by the CIA, attempted an invasion at the Bay of Pigs; the operation failed and embarrassed the US. Castro’s ties with Moscow deepened, and in 1962 the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The crisis ended when the Soviets withdrew their missiles in exchange for a US promise not to invade Cuba. US attempts to remove Castro continued, including assassination plots and schemes involving poisoned cigars, a contaminated diving suit and an explosive disguised as a seashell — efforts that only strengthened domestic support for Castro.
Is Cuba ‘ready to fall’?
Relations improved twice in later decades — under Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and Barack Obama in the 2010s — only to be rolled back by Donald Trump. In early January, Trump said Cuba was “ready to fall” and stepped up pressure by blocking its foreign oil supplies, including shipments routed through Cuba-friendly Venezuela, where the US had taken military action. In March he added, on camera, “I think I will have the honor of taking Cuba.”
Cuba pushed back. Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told NBC News the country was sovereign and would not accept being controlled by another state. Meanwhile conditions on the island deteriorated: energy supplies faltered, blackouts grew common, tourism fell, garbage piled up in the streets and food spoiled during outages. Zeuske says Cuba is resilient in terms of leadership, the military and territorial control, yet many people are deeply dissatisfied — especially over power cuts — and a growing number of young Cubans want to leave.
This article has been translated from German.