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How did U.S. economic interests contribute to the Spanish-American War?
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U.S. economic interests significantly contributed to the Spanish-American War through business investments and yellow journalism. American businesses had substantial investments in Cuban sugar, dominating the market and forming strong economic ties. This created a vested interest in securing Cuba from Spanish control. Meanwhile, newspapers used sensationalist tactics to shape public opinion and support for the war, driven by business motives to increase sales. However, not all business leaders supported the war, highlighting a complex economic influence.
As others have already spoken about, US business and economic interests played a role in supporting imperialism, and with it the Spanish American War. One business that particularly stands out in this, however, is the newspaper industry, and its role in shaping the discourse around Cuba, to its own business interests.
One thing you need to be aware of is that newspapers are ultimately businesses, and are thus motivated by the need to sell papers. In the late Nineteenth Century, this resulted in tactics of yellow journalism, where newspapers used sensationalism to attract public attention. We see this in the example of Cuba, where newspapers circulated stories designed to create outrage among their readers, for the purpose of increasing their sales. This is a critical story within the history surrounding the Spanish American War: the role that the newspapers played in shaping the discourse and public opinion concerning Cuba, largely...
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out of their own business interests.
Economic and business interests played an important part in starting the Spanish-American War. Over many decades prior to the outbreak of war, American businesses had been taking over mining and sugar interests from the Spanish, who had been unable to adapt to changing market conditions. Thanks to American capital, machinery, and technology, the lucrative Cuban sugar industry was then able to compete more effectively with European beet sugar.
Refiners and manufacturers from the United States came to dominate the Cuban sugar market to such an extent that by 1894, four years before the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, America accounted for nearly ninety per cent of Cuban sugar exports. This created a strong economic bond between the United States and Cuba that American business interests were naturally keen to consolidate. Even those businesses who had little or no presence in Cuba saw the huge potential in having a strategically important island just 90 miles off the coast of Florida as a captive market for their goods.
We should note first of all that not all business interests were in favor of this war. For example, Andrew Carnegie was a major leader of the anti-imperialist cause. In fact, people like Theodore Roosevelt who were strongly in favor of the war were not at all happy with the business community who, they thought, did not support the war strongly enough.
However, there were business leaders who did want a war of conquest. These leaders felt that securing Cuba would be good for business. American companies had about $50 million invested in Cuba and did $100 billion in trade with the island each year (source: Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen, The American Pageant 11th edition page 646). Businesses that had an interest in the island felt that their interests could be better protected if Spain were ejected and the rebellion in Cuba ended.
In addition, there were those who wanted an empire beyond Cuba. They felt that it was important to give American businesses new markets to sell to and to get raw materials from.