The Economic Handicaps of the Caribbean Basin

The original thirteen colonies of the United States won their independence from Britain in 1776, allowing them more than two hundred years to achieve the development the US currently enjoys. Yet, this is in stark contrast to the majority of the islands in the Caribbean and several of the surrounding countries, most of who have only gained their sovereignty within the last 30-40 years during the post-Cold War decolonization, rather than a fight for their independence. The United States obtained its freedom during a period when colonialism still existed extensively and the U.S. could therefore participate as an imperial nation; acquiring their own colonies and expanding capitalism and democracy, whereas the Caribbean nations were set down in an era where political imperialism no longer existed and the economically and politically dominant had already risen. "The Cold War between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies was effective in providing a rigid ordering to the post war international system" (Spanakos, 105). This rigid ordering, revolving around capitalism and therefore worldwide inequality, left little room for the newly decolonized nations of the Caribbean to establish effective sovereignty, thus, leaving them susceptible to economic exploitation, drug transshipment/trafficking, violence, heavy migration and economic and sometimes political dependence on more stable countries such as the United States.