Sugar was the primary vehicle of reciprocal manipulation between the United
States and the Dominican Republic from 1958 to 1962. A focus on sugar policy,
therefore, elucidates the contrasting definitions of national interest that US and
Dominican leaders have applied in their dealings with each other. Unlike
traditional studies of US-Latin American relations, which approach their topic
from a unilateral perspective--focusing on US interests, US actions, US policies,
and the overshadowing weight of US influence in Latin America--this book
provides a bilateral perspective that gives due attention to the US perspective but
attaches equal significance to Dominican interests and ambitions as influential,
and occasionally predominant, factors in determining hemispheric relations. In
addition, this study is a potential source of insight into US relations with other
Latin American nations. ¹

The Monroe Doctrine, which sought to isolate Latin America from European
influence and expand US political and economic hegemony, conditioned the way
that US policy makers thought about the Dominican Republic. ² US policy makers,
striving to maintain political and economic hegemony, consistently used economic
threats and rewards to manipulate Dominican domestic and foreign policy. By
exploring the steps leading to the application of economic coercion against the
Dominican Republic between 1958 and 1962, and the objectives and concrete
impact of that coercion, it is possible to develop some useful generalizations about
the role of economic diplomacy as a tool of US foreign policy.

US economic diplomacy invariably fell into two categories. Positive economic
diplomacy involved the granting of specific rights or privileges, such as
preferential quotas, in order to achieve political or military goals. Negative
economic diplomacy involved the withholding or ending of specific privileges,
such as participation in preferential quotas, or the imposition of particular
constraints, such as punitive taxation. ³ During the Cold War, the United States
frequently used both positive and negative economic diplomacy. In 1960, the

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