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The US was interested in Alaska for the same reason it is interested in anything: exploitation. Alaska has tremendous natural resources, not least in oil, and the fact that it was snatched from under the noses of our one-time enemy (until we discovered the Middle East), the Soviet Union, just some 25 miles away just probably made the deal sweeter. But I guess any time you can buy land at 3 cents an acre, you take it, right?

As far as Cuba is concerned, the US probably didn't care about Cuba until Fidel Castro turned it into an openly Communist state in the late 50s. At that time, of course, there was tremendous hysteria about Communism; the sort of hysteria that dragged us into the Viet Nam war. Castro didn't help anything when in the early 60s he allowed the Soviet Union to put nuclear missiles on Cuba, which is within spitting distance of Miami Beach. So you can understand why President Kennedy was almost willing to start a nuclear-powered World War Three, something from which most people think we would be in bad shape today.

So today, some 40 years after the missile crisis (we call it the Cuban missile crisis, but it was just as much the American missile crisis) we are content, now that Castro has lost the subsidies he used to get in the heydays of Communism, to economically squeeze Cuba almost to the point of starvation. There are no parts available for the ancient cars (new ones are not available for any money, as there is absolutely no trade with the US, nor just about anyone else) there are precious few medicines for the sick. Cuba exports a little sugar and tobacco, two commodities the world is learning to do without more and more. Cuba is still famous for its cigars, but because of the almost total trade embargo, you can only buy them in Europe, and the only place you can find them in the USA is either in the homes of those willing to risk importing them from places like Holland, or on the desks of Senators, who play by their own rules of greed and consider themselves above the law.

Phil

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Q: Why was the US interested in Alaska and Cuba?
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