The CBI was a stepping stone for North American economic integration and a turning point for US trade policy. When Ronald Reagan started this trade and development initiative for the Caribbean Basin in 1981, it served primarily as an economic weapon to roll back communism in the region. Yet after the end of the Cold War the programme was soon transformed into an embryonic free trade agreement. Its goal was no longer to keep communism at bay but to defend the North American market against foreign producers. The CBI started out as an economic tool to project imperial power into the region but it soon turned into a tool to preserve America's economic power against the newly industrialized nations of South-East Asia.
