Cuba–United States relations to advance the interest and increase the profits of private U.S. companies instead of helping Cuba to achieve economic progress, saying that Americans dominated the island's economy and had given support to one of the bloodiest and most repressive dictatorships in the history of Latin America. "We let Batista put the U.S. on the side of tyranny, and we did nothing to convince the people of Cuba and Latin America that we wanted to be on the side of freedom". In 1961 Cuba resisted an armed invasion by about 1,500 CIA trained Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. President
History of Cuba the embargo did not extend to other countries, and Cuba traded with most European, Asian and Latin American countries and especially Canada. However, the United States later pressured other nations and American companies with foreign subsidiaries to restrict trade with Cuba. Also, the Helms–Burton Act of 1996 makes it very difficult for foreign companies doing business with Cuba to also do business in the United States, forcing them to choose between the two. In April 1961, less than four months into the Kennedy administration, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) executed a plan that had been developed under the Eisenhower administration.