Given that Cuba lies less than 100 miles off the coast of the mainland United States, it is inevitable that the histories of the Caribbean island and America have been interwoven almost since the first voyage of discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1492. With what is now the state of Florida also being predominantly a Spanish settlement until 1763, when handed to the British under the Peace of Paris, strong trading and slavery connections were quickly forged between Cuba and the American colonies? Following the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Spanish opened Cuban ports to trade with their new neighbors to the north, and Cuba began to depend on its trade with the U.S. more than with Spain.
On December 17, 2014, Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced that the United States and Cuba would restore diplomatic ties, which were severed in 1961. Successive U.S. administrations have maintained a policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. The change in the countries’ relations, initially marked by a prisoner swap and Havana’s release of a jailed U.S. contractor, prompted some experts to point to better prospects for Cuba’s economy and U.S. relations more broadly in Latin America. But the U.S. trade embargo, which requires congressional approval to be rescinded, is unlikely to be lifted any time soon.
Instructions for Paper
• Each paper must open with a thesis statement and then include significant references to the theories being employed during the discussions in the paper, i.e., theories of international relations, international organization, development, etc. These are extremely important items.
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