US Policy Towards Cuba

Jessica Gibbs

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781134073955
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Thema: Politik

US Policy Towards Cuba is a comprehensive examination of U.S. policy towards Cuba after the Cold War, from 1989-2008. It discusses the competition between Congress and the executive for control of policy, and the domestic interests which shaped policymaking and led to the passage of two major pieces of legislation (the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act) which tightened the embargo on Cuba and were fiercely resisted by U.S. allies. There is also a strong focus on migration as an issue in U.S.-Cuban relations.

The book then moves on to examine U.S. policy during the second Clinton administration, when the interest group environment altered for two principal reasons. Firstly the case of the small Cuban rafter boy, Elian Gonzalez, attracted huge media coverage and led to public questioning of the wisdom of current policy, and secondly the agricultural lobby, keen to export to Cuba, lobbied for the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act, which finally passed in 2000. The final section of the book analyses democracy promotion efforts under President George W. Bush.

Seeking to cast light upon the US policymaking process, Gibbs demonstrates that U.S. Cuba policy represents a rather extreme example of the influence of domestic politics on policymaking, and provides a significant contribution to this important and under-researched aspect of U.S. foreign policy.

1
‘Almost within sight of our shores’

Early nineteenth century US expansionists welcomed the prospect that Cuba would one day be absorbed into the Union. In 1809, outgoing president Thomas Jefferson described Cuba to his successor James Madison as the limit of his ambitions to the South for the ‘empire for liberty’ he hoped to create.¹ While annexation by the United States had strategic and commercial advantages, Cuba would represent a threat if annexed by a rival. In Spanish control, however, it did not. Thus, in 1823, Jefferson advised President James Monroe that what Washington should oppose with regard to Spanish New World territories was ‘the forcible interposition of any other power … and most especially, their transfer to any power by conquest, cession, or acquisition in any other way’.² In the same year, Monroe’s Secretary of State John Quincy Adams privately expressed fears over a possible transfer, writing that ‘Cuba, almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of considerations has become an object of transcendent importance to the political and commercial interests of our Union’. In the next half century, ‘it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba … will be indispensable to the continuance of the Union itself’. There were

laws of political as well as physical gravitation; and if an apple severed by the tempest from its native tree cannot choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only towards the North American Union, which by the same law cannot cast her off from its bosom.

This ‘ripe fruit thesis’ was based in part upon his belief that the racially mixed slave-holding Cuban society could not govern itself (a recurring theme of US policymakers).³

A generation later, controversy in Washington over slavery in the new territories annexed from Mexico increased Cuba’s attraction to Southerners. The annexation of Cuba could help maintain the balance in the US Senate between slave and free states though it might be justified on security grounds. Debating the proposed military occupation of Yucatán in 1848, South Carolina senator John Calhoun remarked that

It is indispensable to the safety of the United States that this island [Cuba] should not be in certain hands. If it were, our coasting trade between the Gulf and the Atlantic would, in case of war, be cut in twain, to be followed by convulsive effects.⁴

A few days later the arch-expansionist Democrat President James K. Polk offered Madrid $100 million for Cuba. Polk was turned down, and the Whig administrations of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore did not pursue annexation, but in 1854 another Democrat, President Franklin Pierce, instructed Pierre Soulé to tempt Madrid with up to $130 million. In November that year, the Ostend Manifesto, signed by Soulé, James Buchanan and John Mason, US diplomats to Madrid, London and Paris, arrived in Washington just as Northern Democrats suffered a huge defeat in congressional elections. The Manifesto discussed Cuba’s commercial importance and the great benefit to Spain’s own development from a generous payment of $120 million ‘far beyond [Cuba’s] present value’. However, its emphasis was on the threat to the United States from a likely Cuban slave revolt. The authors suggested that if Madrid should refuse to sell, policymakers should consider whether Spain’s continued rule over Cuba ‘seriously endangered our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union’. If so,

… then, by every law, human and Divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power, and this, upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor, if there were no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his own home. Under such circumstances, we ought neither to count the cost, nor regard the odds which Spain might enlist against us. We forbear to enter into the question, whether the present condition of the island would justify such a measure. We should, however, be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second St. Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union.⁵

Buchanan continued to push for purchase after he became president in 1857, but Spanish reluctance and the developing sectional conflict hindered his efforts. Abraham Lincoln’s election and the subsequent secession crisis and civil war interrupted these plans, and then, in the early 1870s, the Senate’s rejection of the annexation of the Dominican Republic suggested that the moment for territorial expansion in the Caribbean had passed.

In contrast, commercial links thrived. By the 1890s, US capital was heavily invested in Cuba and the Cuban economy was highly dependent upon the United States as a market and source of imports.⁶ In 1891, the Foster– Cánovas tariff concession agreement between Madrid and Washington sparked a sugar production and export boom in Cuba. This came to an abrupt end in 1894, when a new 40 per cent duty was imposed on all sugar entering the United States. Madrid responded with taxes on US exports to Cuba, further exacerbating economic difficulties and prompting Cubans to begin the final round of their war of independence.⁷ Although the administrations of Grover Cleveland and William McKinley refused to extend belligerent rights to the rebels, there was much sympathy for Cuba Libre in Congress and among the public.⁸ In April 1898, when the United States finally declared war on Spain, popular perception was of an intervention on behalf of Cuban independence.⁹ Misgivings among the exile political leadership and island army commanders about US intentions were assuaged by passage of a joint resolution as an amendment to the declaration of war, adopted as a compromise between the McKinley administration and pro-independence members of Congress. The final article, known as the Teller Amendment after its sponsor, Colorado Senator Henry Teller, was reassuring:

… the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.¹⁰

Unfortunately for prospects of independence, however, the ‘Spanish– American War’ and subsequent US occupation of Cuba confirmed preexisting doubts about both the fitness of Cubans for self-government and their reliability as protectors of US interests.¹¹ Worse still, despite very restrictive suffrage requirements (excluding two-thirds of all adult Cuban men) designed to allow the elite access to political power, conservatives were defeated in municipal elections and elections to a constitutional convention.¹² In the words of military governor General Leonard Wood, ‘To abandon this country to the control of the element now very largely influencing the Convention … would, in my opinion, destroy all immediate hopes for the future advancement and development of the Island and its people’.¹³ Taking inspiration from relations between Great Britain and Egypt, Secretary of War Elihu Root devised the Platt Amendment to secure US interests.¹⁴ It referred back to the joint resolution, but authorized the President to ‘leave the government and control’ of Cuba to its population only

… so soon as a government shall have been established in said island under a constitution which, either as a part thereof or in an ordinance appended thereto, shall define the future relations of the United States with Cuba, substantially as follows:

I That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgement in or control over any portion of said island.

II That said government shall not assume or contract any public debt, to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the current expenses of government shall be inadequate.

III That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.

IV That all Acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected.

V That the government of Cuba will execute, and as far as necessary extend, the plans already devised or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein.

VI That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty.

VII That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

VIII That by way of further assurance the government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States.¹⁵

Under pressure from the US military authorities, the Cuban constitutional convention approved the Platt Amendment as an appendix to the constitution by a 16–11 vote on June 12, 1901. The occupation ended on May 20, 1902, a date still celebrated in Washington, though not in Havana, as Cuban Independence Day. A treaty embodying Platt was negotiated the following year and ratified in 1904, and a reciprocity treaty granting a 20 per cent reduction in US import duties for Cuban sugar and tobacco in exchange for Cuban tariff reductions of 20 to 40 per cent on US imports was concluded in 1903. US–Cuban trade expanded dramatically, as did US investment, particularly in the sugar sector.¹⁶

The United States intervened under Platt in 1906, 1917 and 1920, when electoral fraud by the ruling party led the losers to appeal to Washington. Elections were particularly important because the failure to displace Spanish landowners, the expansion of US landownership and high immigration (favoured by foreign investors) meant that many Cubans depended upon the government posts, sinecures and pensions which flowed from political office.¹⁷ Beyond these episodes, the United States exercised tremendous influence upon Cuban economic, social and political life. In 1933, when a new crisis shook President Gerardo Machado’s repressive rule, US ambassador Sumner Welles threatened to withdraw recognition if Machado would not resign. The Cuban army moved against Machado, and Welles’s candidate, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes was installed as president. Less than two months later, de Céspedes was replaced in the Sergeants’ Revolt led by Fulgencio Batista, and a new government was formed, headed by Ramón Grau San Martín. Grau unilaterally abrogated Platt and rapidly enacted political, labour and land reforms.¹⁸ Welles, who regarded Grau as a raving radical, found President Roosevelt reluctant to break with the newly proclaimed Good Neighbor Policy. Instead Welles played the non-recognition card, accompanied by behind-the-scenes dealings with Batista. In January 1934, Batista transferred his support from Grau to Carlos Mendieta, leader of the Unión Nacionalista party. Washington recognized Mendieta’s moderate, pro-American government within days, and agreed to the abrogation of Platt and the negotiation of a treaty that preserved the naval base at Guantánamo. A new reciprocity treaty in 1934 reduced tariffs on Cuban agricultural imports in exchange for tariff reductions on a huge range of US imports. Even more significant was establishment of the sugar quota system, under which producing regions, both domestic and foreign, were given an annual quota based on participation in the US market between 1931 and 1933.¹⁹

Although Batista was now the most powerful man in Cuba, it was not until 1940 that he was elected president under a progressive new constitution. In 1944, Batista’s prime minister stood for the presidency, but was defeated by Grau (1944–48), who was succeeded by Carlos Prío Socarrás (1948–52), both leaders of the new auténtico party. In March 1952, however, in the midst of a presidential election campaign in which he was trailing behind ortodoxo and auténtico candidates, Batista launched a coup against Prío. Washington rapidly recognized Batista’s new government, and successive US ambassadors Arthur Gardner (1952–57) and Earl Smith (1957–59) were close to the president, who maintained military cooperation with the United States, severed relations with Moscow, outlawed the communist party and provided incentives to foreign investors.²⁰ In 1958, US interests controlled 42 per cent of sugar production, 83 per cent of the public service railways and more than 90 per cent of telephone and electrical services, and the US companies Standard Oil and Texaco imported, refined and distributed nearly 70 per cent of Cuba’s petroleum requirements.²¹ The US government owned Cuba’s largest industrial plant, a nickel complex at Nicaro.²² One-fifth of the national budget came from taxes paid by US businesses and C...