Annexation of Cuba

In the Spanish-American War the Teller Amendment and the Foraker Amendment prohibited the US from annexing Cuba and from granting US businesses concessions (although loopholes were eventually found). Do you think that without these the increased US investment and involvement in the Cuban economy would have been enough for an attempted annexation? The governor of Cuba, General Leonard Wood was heavily in favor of annexation and certainly in a position to make it favorable to US businesses especially if he isn't limited by the Foraker Amendment. If that's not enough how do you get the US to annex Cuba post-war?
 
Well, to get rid of those prohibitive Amendments in the first place, you'd need Congress and/or the American public to be more receptive towards the idea of Cuban statehood in the first place. If you can manage to create a political atmosphere where those prohibitive Amendments are never adopted, that'll be enough to eventually win enough support for annexation as well. Especially if the cubans themselves can be convinced to support the idea.
 
You'd need a POD much earlier I suppose, this is when Manifest Destiny was still popular. Perhaps during when American-Spanish tensions were very high in fact nearly at the point of war during the 1818-20's period. Have Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida spark off a war with Spain and then get America to demand Cuba in the negotiations. Spain was very fragile at this point, civil war, economic collapse and revolutions in its colonies had made it very desperate, which is why it came to the table to negotiate for the Adam-Onis treaty. Even the Cuban's had been conspiring to secede from Spain to join the United States as a slave state.
 
Top