Obama Warms on Cuba

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright March 8, 2009
All Rights Reserved.                    

          President Barack Obama moved intelligently away from a slow-moving economic mess to a potential foreign policy success, signaling the White House will ease travel and trade restrictions to Cuba.  With 82-year-old communist ideologue Fidel Castro forced to step down February 2008 due to illness, his 76-year-old brother Raul seems more amenable to dialogue.  Castro drove an irreconcilable wedge between with the U.S., confiscating U.S. property during the 1959 Cuban revolution and subsequent purges, incarcerating and murdering political dissidents.  Exiles living in Miami and elsewhere want nothing less than a return of lost assets.  Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower imposed a crippling embargo on Cuba, banning trade and travel to the communist island.  Obama signaled during the campaign, much to the chagrin of Cuban exiles, he was open to change.

            U.S. authorities hint at turning a new page with Cuba when they meet for a Caribbean and Latin American conference in Trinidad and Tobago next month.  Administration officials urge relaxing travel and bank funds transfers to Cuba, a step closer to ending the 50-year travel and trade embargo.  “The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant.  It will improve things and be very welcome,” said an unnamed Cuban official, expecting changes.  “It just takes us back to the 1990s,” when policies under former President Bill Clinton were less severe than those of former President George W. Bush.  Recent trade and defense overtures by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev prompted the U.S. to reconsider its policy.  There’s no logical reason to continue a trade embargo that drives Cuba into the arms of Russia, at the same time, punishes U.S. businesses.

            Cuban Americans have to get over age-old hatreds and realize that things changed in their once cherished homeland.  It’s difficult to pass judgment on the old days where U.S.-backed dictator Fulcencio Batista ruled the impoverished island.  Whether the U.S. likes it or not, Castro’s communist revolution at least promised better days.  While far from perfect, Castro improved employment, education, health care and retirement benefits for rank-and-file Cubans.  “There is a strong likelihood that Obama will announce policy changes prior to the summit,” said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue.  Under Batista, the U.S. provided considerable exports to Cuban, especially in the areas of agriculture, communications, construction and technology.  U.S. trade, travel and financial restriction have hurt American business more than Cuba.

            Obsolete trade and travel policies date back to John F. Kennedy administration, where contact with Cuba was strictly prohibited.  Kennedy’s disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, where the U.S. trained and supported Cuban insurgents, drove Castro to forge a strong alliance with the Soviet Union, giving Russia a foothold in Latin America.  Obama’s relaxation would mark a possible turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations.  “It would signal new pragmatism, but you would still have the embargo which is the centerpiece of U.S. policy,” said Erikson, supporting strongly administration plans to normalize relations.  Fifty years of embargo didn’t topple Castro and end the Cuban revolution.  It punished ordinary Cubans and American businesses unable to mutually benefit from trade relations.  Eventually ending the embargo would open up opportunity for both nations.

            With so many foreign policy challenges facing the White House, improving relations with Cuba would show tangible success.  Obama’s Iraq withdrawal and Afghanistan redeployment plans promise more setbacks at a time of economic upheaval.  Opening up new markets in Cuba would be a positive step in a long slog of economic bad news.  “There are some things that could be done very easily—for example, it’s about time we too Cuba off the terrorist list.  It’s the beginning of the end of the policies we have had toward Cuba for 50 years.  It’s achieved nothing, it’s an embarrassment,” said Wayne Smith, director of the Cuba program at the Center for International Policy in Washington.  Scholars like Smith have argued for years that the U.S. policy toward Cuba was counterproductive, hurting American businesses, ordinary Cubans and driving Cuban into the Communist bloc.

            Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have far better chances of scoring a major foreign policy success in Cuba than anything in the Middle East.  While opening up the door in Cuba might antagonize some Cuban-Americans, a policy change is long overdue.  Fidel’s brother Raul is far more amenable to improving Cuban-U.S. relations.  Younger generations of Cuban exiles living in the U.S. are more open to expanding business opportunities and normalizing relations.  Only 90 miles south of Key West, Cuba represents a new frontier for improved relations with Latin America.  Obama’s new policy toward Cuba walks a tightrope with hardliners unwilling to compromise unless Havana returns U.S. property and initiates Democratic reforms.  Before killing any chance of improving relations, ending travel and trade restrictions would be a good first step.

.John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analysing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.