Abstract
In 1953, faced with a catastrophic fall in the price of sugar, representatives of the major sugar-producing and consuming nations of the world met in London to agree on a mechanism for stabilising the international sugar market. Cuba was heavily dependent on the export of sugar and any change in either the price received for the sugar crop or the amount that could be sold had a huge effect on the island’s economy. By the 1950s, Cuba had two independent markets for its sugar exports, one provided by the US quota system and the other being the so-called ‘world market’. However, when the political threat of a reduction in the US quota coincided with a heavy fall in the price on the world market, the Cuban sugar industry faced a crisis.
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© 2013 Steve Cushion
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Cushion, S. (2013). Cuban Popular Resistance to the 1953 London Sugar Agreement. In: Curry-Machado, J. (eds) Global Histories, Imperial Commodities, Local Interactions. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283603_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283603_9
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