When Cuba broke relations with the U.S. in 1961, Castro gave a speech titled Cuba is a Socialist Nation, and in this speech he said, “the meaning of a revolution is in which a nation gets rid of parasites from the outside and those inside.” This quote reveals that Castro always believed that the Cuban revolution was a fight to get rid of the U.S. parasite by nationalizing the Cuban economy. Even though Castro does not explicitly state that he would cut ties with the U.S. it must be understood that when Castro called for nationalizing the Cuban economy, then U.S. owned assets would have to be expropriated because the U.S. owned large amounts of Cuban industries and resources.
In 1960, Castro gave a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, where he attacked the U.S. by stating that Cuba was turned from a Spanish colony into a U.S. colony because the U.S. introduced the Platt Amendment,
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the right to have military bases in Cuba, the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and granted the U.S. concessions to agricultural lands, mines, and public utilities. Castro was infuriated by the U.S. exploitation of Cuba because he noticed that while U.S. corporations grew rich, the Cuban people lived without land to grow crops on, lived in poverty, suffered high unemployment rates, and paid high rents and utilities. In order to better the Cuban people’s lives Castro realized that he needed to break relations with the U.S. in order to nationalize the Cuban economy by taking back the telephone companies, reducing electricity rates, and instituting agrarian reforms. Castro’s speech at the U.N. shows that Castro was always angered at U.S. exploitation of the Cuban economy, which illustrates that Castro planned to nationalize the U.S. economy and sever relations with