Cuban Economic Reforms and Rapprochement with the United States: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that by the second half of the nineteenth century, the United States—by then an emerging industrial power—had become Cuba’s main trading partner and a critical driver of its economy. Following US intervention on the island in 1898, and during the founding of the Cuban republic, wide-reaching new laws codified US influence¹ and extended its reach further into Cuba’s political, military, and cultural sectors. The 1959 Revolution, within a matter of years, destroyed a relationship that, although long-standing and close, had always been asymmetric. In many respects, Cuban economic development had languished because of the extensive commercial and investment privileges granted to large US corporations in the domestic Cuban market.