L´économie haïtienne en 1915

Resumo

This paper tries to define the competitive capacity of the Haitian economy within the Caribbean of 1915, the year that the United States of America decided to occupy militarily the economies of the area for the benefit of a few sugar and banking corporations. This occupation enjoyed the support of Congress and the State Department. The paper also examines the advantages and disadvantages that the country had in this period to compete with the other economies that focused their development on attracting large flows of foreign, in particular American, investment. It reviews in this context some studies that have been undertaken on this subject; and indicates, contrary to these writings, that the country could have taken advantage of this conjuncture, although not to the same degree as the rival economies. The article maintains that the Haitian State should have struggled to have strong support in the US Congress, because everything depended on the control of a share of the American market, and that Congress facilitated this control through the measures it took with respect to the quotas allocated to the various countries. Furthermore, Congress set the tariffs, applied in a discriminatory manner and according the economic interests of the lobbies related to interests in each of the plantation countries.

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