| Abstract: | This article provides a 50-year reassessment of foreign investment and trade in Cuba and locates this analysis within Cuban debates on development and the economics of transition. Transformations contextualised in these debates cover three periods. The 1959–1989 period was characterised by nationalisations and expropriations, the imposition of the US trade embargo, and the trade and economic assistance agreements signed with the Soviet Union. The Special Period crisis emerged in the 1990s and Cuba had to turn to foreign investment and alternative trade options while continuing to reject the adoption of open regionalism and neoliberal policies. The 2005–2008 period was characterised by Cuba's incorporation into the Bolivarian Alternative, a new regional integration model. |
