US-Cuban relations in the 20th century

The US helped Cuba rebuild its sugar plantations by sending machinery and technical help and, in return, taking over many of the country’s largest estates. This would be the start of US infiltration into Cuba, a small yet significant island it probably sought to annex if given half the chance.

The first President of the newly independent nation, Tomas Estrada Palma, was a main player in the Spanish American War and the one to secure US help. Although infrastructure and general standard of living in Cuba greatly improved under his tenure, it did so in exchange for greater US dominance over the nation and, for this, Palma has always been greatly criticized in his homeland.

The 1933 revolution would see military leader Fulgencio Batista set up a police state in Cuba, something which greatly decreased the standard of living and freedoms in the country. By the time Fidel Castro and his brother Raul concocted a guerrilla warfare against Batista in 1956, Cubans were desperate for change and freedom, something the Castros and their ally, the Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara, took full advantage of.

Batista went into exile in 1959 and Castro took over as President, with the first order of the day being to silence his opposition. The severing of ties with the US, a long-time ally, occurred in 1961 and Cuba, knowing it would have no defence against such a powerful enemy, immediately aligned with the US’ most well-known enemy, the USSR, fuelling a Cold War to would continue for decades thereafter.

The USSR’ plan to use Cuba as a missile-launching pad led to what is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis and, at its absolute peak, the Bay of Pigs Crisis in 1963, an attempt at a Castro-overthrow by US President JF Kennedy. The political and economic partnership which helped both countries for so long was now well and truly relegated to the history books.

The US imposed a most severe embargo on Cuba who, in turn, aligned with the USSR, its enemy’s most fervent enemy. The Cold War may not have led to a much-feared WWIII yet US-Cuban relations would continue to be strained to breaking point, to say the least, for the next 50 years.