Cuba and Tourism Essay

After it became officially globally acknowledged that Cuba was in fact a communist state and was being led through a dictatorship run by Castro, it did not take long before powerful enemies and essential allies were formed. The act of seizing all foreign land with none or very little compensation was received with great hostility amongst those who lost in their property through this process, and probably the reaction that had the biggest impact on Cuba’s economy was that of the US. Castro’s communistic policies did not of course help calm this resentment and also took part in leading to the establishment of trade embargos with Cuba from the US. This meant that Cuba would now lose a very valuable buyer of their precious sugar, [5] but they did however gain another one, a powerful nation that shared quite similar Marxist ideals and were quick to form an alliance with the Cubans, the USSR.

The population of Cuba is 11,141,997 people. The Cuban culture has been rich with festivals and many religious and historical honors over the past century. The Cuban peso is the basis for currency in Cuba.

In 1895 Cuba rebelled against Spain to declare their independence. Americans were outraged with the Spanish after they had killed off a quarter of the Cuban population. Newspapers flooded with propaganda and pressure for the U.S. to intervene and help the Cuban revolution. Americans felt that it was there duty to help Cuba and freeing them from Spain’s control. Not only did they feel it was the humanitarian thing to do but the Cuban rebellion also damaged American business in Cuba.

     Cuba had been rebelling against Spanish rule for decades and the United States never intruded. America claimed that the reason for their involvement in 1895 was to assist Cuba against Spanish slaughter, but they hadn’t thought about involving themselves until their trade for sugar with Cuba was cut off. The Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 placed high taxes on sugar, destructing Cuba’s sugar market and causing the discontinuation of trade with the United States. Cuba had acted as America’s primary sugar market. President Cleveland and successor, McKinley, desired to stay neutral, but the revealing of the Spanish De Lome letter and the sinking of the Maine in 1898 presented no other option.

Though after the Spanish-American War, Hawaii was able to gain attention as expansionists envisioned ships sailing from the eastern seaboard through a Central American canal to Hawaii and then on to China. It took President McKinley to successfully maneuvered annexation through Congress by means of a majority vote. Cuba was also played a part in American foreign affairs during the turn of the century. After the United States imposed the Wilson-German Tariff, Cuba, depending on imports heavily, fell in to a deep economic crisis. This caused the Cubans to launch a revolution in 1895. Though the Spanish government did provide modified reconcentration and promised some autonomy for Cuba. President McKinley was a known imperialist that wanted independence of Cuba achieved without an U.S. war if possible. Though the revolution seemed to have no end, so the U.S. set the battleship Maine to demonstrate U.S. concern and protection for Americans in Cuba. After its explosion, the U.S. declared war on Spain. The U.S. forces would quickly defeat the Spanish in Cuba and also in the Philippines. The U.S. took the Philippines saying that it was a Spanish colony even though the war was going on in another hemisphere. There were also other incidences in other parts of the world. The U.S. asked China to keep an Open Door policy. This meant that China had to respect the principle of equal trade opportunity for all nations in their spheres of influence. This caused the Boxers to hold

Cuba was one of the territories that United States imperialized. The US was a heavy consumer of the sugar produced in Cuba but didn’t meet the sugar industry demands. The international market collapsed, and the US used this opportunity to purchase the sugar mills in Cuba “Cuban sugar mills into bankruptcy … sensing an opportunity, investors from the United States

Castro was not even aware of his impact on the people. In an interview with American journalist Liza Howard on April 30th 1963, Castro had given Liza “the impression that he was not completely aware of the extent to which terror had gripped Cuba” (United States. Central Intelligence Agency). The next strategy was to attack Cuba and Castro commercially, economically, and financially. Eisenhower administered the first trade embargo on Cuba on October 19th 1960. After working with the policy committees of US to Cuba, the White House had composed a document stating the regulations. This embargo covered all U.S. exports of good, but not medicines and certain foods. The States thought that creating this law against exporting would be taken as a form of more peaceful protest, to gain back the trading, Castro will need to step down from power. (United States. Presidential Directive). Castro also tried to restrict trading too, to get back at the U.S. to show that this was not a one way street. He created the Platt Amendment to stop Cuban sugar from being imported to the United States. In 1993 the US cracks down on Cuba intensifying the embargo in hopes of the economy failing. This soon forced Cuba into an agreement of allowing a certain amount of citizens to immigrate to either country per year. When Cuba shot down two U.S.

For three years, Cuba had been struggling to drive away Spain for independence. At first, the government did not want military intervention in Cuba for the reason that American merchants did not need colonies since they could have unrestricted access to markets anyways. The idea of just letting people in became dominant in American foreign policy because it was an easier method to imperialism so they could manipulate to authority. A lot of the support was based on the thought of the Americans in 1776; they were fighting for their own freedom.

Until sugar production made Cuba the wealthiest agricultural region on earth in the nineteenth century, the island was considered relatively diverse, compared to others in the Caribbean. The quality of soil was universally unparalleled, and gained countries interest. Although the French and Spanish were in feud over the island, merchants from Portugal, England, and Holland participated in trade, which brought diversity to Cuba. At the end of the eighteenth century, the Haitian Revolution changed the racial, social, and economical demographics on Cuba. Seeing that the Haitian revolution was a triumph of colossus proportions, the individuals who started it, embodied the spirit that initiated the great uprising. From the late eighteenth century, into the nineteenth century, formally freed slaved from Haiti migrated to Cuba in astonishing numbers. This not only altered the demographics on the island, it brought in a new workforce that proliferated local sugar production. Within a short period of time, Cuba became the biggest sugar cane producer in the world. The United States gained interest in capitalizing from the islands newfound wealth, and being close in proximity made the temptation of interfere with France and Spain irresistible. In the late nineteenth century, the United States interfered with Cuba’s fight for independence and increased their investments tenfold. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the US gained control of the island through ownership,

Cuba, a “Spanish colony ninety miles south of Florida”, was under Spain’s imperialism (Tindall and Shi, 669). There were many revolts against Spain, but they could not win their independence, primarily due to being a large export market for Spain. American sugar plantations in Cuba and mining companies were very concerned with the Spanish control. More importantly, the Americans did more trade business in Cuba than Spaniards. The Spanish-American War of 1898 may have begun as a war to free Cuba from Spanish rule, but was soon turned into an opportunity for America to gain more lands and

The Spanish-American War was fought mainly for economic reasons. The United States' primary motivation for entering the war was “purely economic” (Spanish-American War). The United States had a vested interest in Cuba – almost fifty million dollars invested in the island nation. Additionally, America had a sound trade history with Cuba: trading more with the Spanish colony than its motherland (Cuba). The rotting Spanish Empire provided a hindrance to American business interests. Tariffs and trade fees were especially troublesome to American businessmen. After the war, America had successfully the profitability of their investments. This was done through the Platt Amendment. This amendment had essentially dictated Cuba's economic policy: allowing Americans to check Cuban national debt and foreign treaties (Platt Amendment).

Before the revolution was taken place, Cuba had received very little attention during colonial years. The lack of minerals and very little agricultural production prevented Cuba from its economic advancement. In the 19th century Cuban Sugar industry began to improvement by adopting new technological developments and became a well-known country for producing sugar. Later, United States attempted to buy the island to set the basic process for the independence in Cuba. Spain also offered to grant greater political and social autonomy to the island in the convention of Zanjon, in 1878. However, many Cubans, including Antonio Maceo, refused to accept the offer and demanded to declare independence by its own.

U.S. wanted Cuba to meet special requirements in order for the embargo to go into effect, including rules such as: transition to a democracy, demand Havana support small businesses in exchange for sheathing restrictions on remittances, denounce presence of either Fidel or Raul Castro in Cuban government, better living conditions for all Cuban citizens, absolutely no travel to Cuba, and promote human rights. Cuba has not yet met all requirements, but is currently working on them. Obama reversed some of these polices, such as, allowing U.S. citizens to send remittances to non-family members in Cuba and travel under license of religious or educational purposes. As of today United States citizens may travel to Cuba with only special reasons like religious or

In the early 1900’s, Cuba was a stomping ground for many of the rich and famous from the United States. Many famous movies stars and wealthy business entrepreneurs spend their vacations there along with a substantial amount of money. Trade and commerce between the United States and Cuba flowed freely and abundantly. Even with the Dictatorship-like regime of Batista, the countries benefited from the economic trade between them. This was all about to come crashing down as revolts against Batista occurred and Fidel Castro came to power within Cuba.

The Platt Amendment states that the United States has the ability to interfere at various points in Cuba’s history. This gave America the ability to better serve its own interests in the region, including sugar