In June of 1954, the United States enacted a coup against the Guatemalan government that destroyed and reversed the quest of democracy and honest government in the South American country. In April of 1961, the United States once again tried to start a revolt and uprising coup against a Latin American government, this time Cuba, but the plot failed. The two countries are very similar in history and in dreams of national liberation yet their outcomes are very different. In comparing and contrasting Guatemala and Cuba, one can see that the claws of the United States in the form of land ownership and economic control was very similar between the two countries. It is how the countries extracted those claws and the claws of the corrupt governments in charge that is so different between them and sent them along different paths in history.

The United States had a lot of power within the country of Guatemala in the form of a banana company and the railroad. By the time that Arevalo became president, “two percent of the landowners held 72 percent of the land” (38). The Guatemalan economy was based primarily on bananas which were grown by American companies like the United Fruit company. Large plantations of over 1,100 acres took up over half of the Guatemalan farmland but only consisted of 0.3 percent of the farms in Guatemala. The usage of such large farms were for banana growth and used so inefficiently that Guatemala had to import some of their basic foods. (40). The United Fruit company dominated Guatemala in more than just the exporting of bananas. They also owned the IRCA railroad, which owned every stretch of railroad in Guatemala. The United Fruit company also owned the only major port in Guatemala -- Puerto Barrios. Because they owned the most land in Guatemala, all of the railroads, the only transportation to port, and owned the port it self, the United Fruit company had major influence on Guatemalan economics. They could decide what Guatemala could export and import and what they could not. Guatemala had to depend on the United Fruit company to sustain their economic status.

In Cuba, the situation was very similar in the fact that a major percentage of agricultural land and economy had United States ties. Cuban economy was based upon three things: sugar, oil, and tourism. The United States was the near soul market and investor within Cuba for all three economic sources. The large land holders owned around 85 percent of the agricultural land, much of which was American sugar plantations. Not only did the United States own many of the sugar plantations, America was the major buyer of the sugar produced. The United States also had several oil refineries within Cuba. The last form of economic contribution America made in Cuba was that of tourism. Havana was a cheap, exotic, and exciting place for Americans to go for vacation. It is likened to the Las Vegas of today in the fact that the city never sleeps; there are wild parties, gambling, and a flashy lifestyle. America had a huge role in the Cuban economy just as they did in Guatemala. It was not the American Government but the American investors that created claws within each economy creating a huge dependency on the United States and allowing the Americans to corrupt their government.

Though the dependency on United States investment money and commercial market is similar between Guatemala and Cuba, the way they tried to extract the claws of dependency was very different. It is different in the fact that Guatemala tried the path of reform through democracy and Cuba decided the path of revolution with dictatorship. Guatemala had always had elections for the presidency, but were corrupt and bought by dictators. In 1945, the Guatemalans decided it was enough, and a new president was elected to institute a stronger and uncorrupted government who would bring reform and democracy to Guatemala. On March 15, 1945, Juan Jose Arevalo “became the first popularly elected President of Guatemala” (35). Arevalo introduced a new constitution and an important reform policy, Law of Forced Rental which would “force fallow land into productive use by allowing” peasants to cultivate it (41). This law would soon get Guatemala in trouble and would result in the coup of 1954. Arevalo’s predecessor, Arbenz was determined to “wrest control of the economy from the US corporations controlling it” (53). He decided that Guatemala needed a publicly owned port and a highway to get to it. This would cause competition with both the United Fruit company’s port and the railroads that go to it. If that wasn’t enough of a jab at Americans, Arbenz confiscated the fallow land of the American Fruit company and compensated them with the value the company claimed on their taxes, which was very undervalued. Arbenz wanted to “limit the power of foreign companies through direct competition rather than nationalization” and instated all these reforms and changes under the constitution Arevalo created (53). The control of the Americans was diminishing in somewhat small ways but the gesture alone was an insult to the American industries. The United Fruit company talked with their friends in the US government and took their revenge against Arbenz in the coup of 1954, installing a president that would reverse all of the reforms and make the United Fruit company the dominant economic producer in Guatemala once again.

Castro decided to lead Cuba down the path of revolution and dictatorship. He ousted Batista in 1959 and immediately started a sweeping social reform throughout Cuba. His first decision was expropriate all large land holdings and turn them into state-run sugar plantations. Angered Americans and the United States government decided not to buy as much sugar from Cuba as they did before. Castro, who decided to create a more independent economy started to buy crude oil from the Soviets because it was cheaper and asked the oil refineries in Cuba to refine the oil. They refused and so he confiscated all foreign owned oil refineries in Cuba. This was the last straw for the American government and an embargo against Cuba was enacted in 1960, only a year after Castro had taken power. The claws of America were quickly removed and Cuba turned its eye to the Soviet Union for support. Cuba realized that in order to become fully economically self-sufficient they needed to become manufacturers rather than raw materiel producers, but their effort to industrialize Cuba failed. Even though Cuba has not become industrialized or a core country it has made progress in becoming more independent of foreign investment and foreign companies within Cuba.

Guatemala and Cuba began as very dependent countries on the investors of the United States, they struggled to remove some or all of the dependency ties -- one failed in their attempt and the other succeeded. Comparing and contrasting Guatemala and Cuba shows how similar the economic control of America in both countries was, and how different the paths to reduce or eliminate that control became. Guatemala tried to use reform and democracy to create national liberation and failed when the United States created the coup in 1954. Cuba, seeing the outcome of Guatemala’s attempt, decided on revolution and dictatorship, which is still strong today.