Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic were very important for the emerging American power in the Caribbean because they were territories formerly in the possession of the European powers (Spain and France), which once independent limited the power of these nations in the region.
Thus, the fact that Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic were constituted as independent nations caused the European colonial powers to lose weight in the Caribbean Sea, leaving a power vacuum that was used by the United States to establish itself as the main power of the region.
