:Caribbean Basin

{{Short description|Region of North America}}

{{Infobox continent

|title = Caribbean Basin

|image = Caribbean_general_map.png

|image_size = 400

|caption = Map of Caribbean region, including dependencies

}}

The Caribbean Basin or Caribbean Proper (or the Caribbean Basin regionUnited States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance, "Caribbean Basin Initiative--1983: Hearing Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Ninety-eighth Congress, First Session, on S. 544, April 13, 1983." Volume 98, Issue 277 of S. hrg, United States Congress. U.S. Government Printing Office (1983), pp. 53-55 [https://books.google.com/books?id=6KCANRIPNcQC&pg=PA53] (retrieved 26 April 2024)) is a geopolitical term used to describe countries which generally border the Caribbean Sea.{{cite book|title=The Caribbean Basin: An International History|author1=Stephen J. Randall|author2=Graeme S. Mount|date=1998|page=1}} As a geopolitical concept, the term often includes the country of El Salvador, which only touches the Pacific Ocean, for its similarities to neighbouring countries. The definition has also been taken literally at times{{According to whom|date=April 2024}} and can exclude areas such as Barbados and the Turks and Caicos Islands which also do not technically touch the Caribbean Sea.{{cite journal | url=https://journals.flvc.org/flgeog/article/view/128940 | title=What and Where is the Caribbean? A Modern Definition | journal=The Florida Geographer | date=24 May 2021 | volume=52 | issue=1 | pages=3–28 | last1=Williams | first1=Ernest H. | last2=Bunkley-Williams | first2=Lucy }}

During the Cold War, the then US President Ronald Reagan coined the term to define the region benefiting from his administration's Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) economic program, approved in US law in 1983. Thus, the Caribbean basin included only the countries of the Caribbean insular and Central America that met the requirements of the CBI, and Cuba and Nicaragua, which the American government viewed as politically "repressive" and "economic failure" were excluded.Barca, Alessandro, "EE. UU. y la cuenca del Caribe. Crónica de un fracaso anunciado." [in] Nueva Sociedad NRO. 64 Enero-Febrero (1983), pp. 110-115. [https://static.nuso.org/media/articles/downloads/1023_1.pdf] (retrieved 26 April 2024)Mendoza, María de Lourdes Sánchez, "Un acercamiento a la región del Caribe: su importancia estratégica y económica." UNAM (Relaciones Internacionales). (2006) [in] Catalogo Revistas UNAM [https://www.revistas.unam.mx/index.php/rri/article/view/18371] As a result of this US foreign policy initiative, the term "Caribbean Basin" began to be used as a geographic description in the 1980s.{{cite book|title=Politics and Development in the Caribbean Basin|last=Grugel|first=Jean|date=1995|page=2|publisher=Macmillan Press}}

Canadian historians and academics, Professor Graeme S. Mount and Professor Stephen Randall, citing historian Bruce B. Solnick, posits that:

:"...one area of the modern Caribbean basin owes its heritage to the legacy of the Spanish Empire; other segments were traditionally British preserve; a third area was French, and a final area, more diminutive, was dominated by the Netherlands in the colonial years. It is not surprising, therefore, as Solnick notes, that "often the history of the region is treated solely as a function of European colonial expansion."Mount, Graeme, and Randall, Stephen; "The Caribbean Basin: An International History." The New International History. Routledge (2013), p. 1, {{ISBN|9781136141164}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=dTpGAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1] (retrieved 26 April 2024)Solnick, Bruce B., "The West Indies and Central America to 1898." New York: Knopf (1970), pp. ix, 188-9

In the latter part of the 20th century, following the collapse of European colonialism, the Caribbean became "an American lake" which American hegemony seek to provide a form of unity in the region,Mount, Graeme; Randall, Stephen; "The Caribbean Basin: An International History." The New International History. Routledge (2013), p. 1, {{ISBN|9781136141164}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=dTpGAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1] (retrieved 26 April 2024) though the USA never saw itself as a Caribbean nation, nor did Venezuela until the 1970s.Pastor, Robert, "Sinking in the Caribbean Basin." [in] United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance, "Caribbean Basin Initiative--1983: Hearing Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Ninety-eighth Congress, First Session, on S. 544, April 13, 1983." Volume 98, Issue 277 of S. hrg, United States Congress. U.S. Government Printing Office (1983), p. 203 [https://books.google.com/books?id=6KCANRIPNcQC&pg=PA202] (retrieved 26 April 2024) That view is supported by the America historian and author, Professor Robert Pastor who argues that: "...all the nations in and around the Caribbean Sea seemed to have in common was a view of the United States as the "colossus of the north" and the U.S. view of them as a "backyard."