Let Down on Cuba
- Obama administration hands over its Cuba policy to treasury Secretary Geithner and the Technocrat
- Where is Hillary?
- The President continues to forsake his supporters
- Prospects for a creative new policy towards Cuba flounder
On March 10, Congress passed a bill containing provisions that will relax travel, trade and remittance provisions within
existing legislation, in a move toward implementing the pledges made by Presidential candidate Barack Obama while on the
campaign trail. The House had passed the bill back on February 25, but it was expected to face major hold ups in Senate
hearings, specifically opposition from Senators Bill Nelson (D-Fla) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who both represent large
Cuban-American constituencies. However, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner assured the two leading opponents of the
legislation that the new regulations would essentially not be implemented.
The legislation contains $410 billion in spending authorizations while simultaneously lifting a number of restrictions
on Cuba imposed by the Bush administration, which renewed travel limitations for Cuban Americans desiring to return to
the island and tightened the decades-old trade embargo. Bush had introduced this punitive legislation after his
inauguration in 2000 to please the anti-Castro Cuban exiles who had vociferously supported him during his campaign.
According to the Miami Herald, in a letter that Secretary Geithner sent to Nelson and Menendez, he assured them that the
Obama administration would not enforce a liberalized interpretation of the bill’s provisions and that any changes which
would be made would be only be implemented at a very slow pace.
Alarmingly, it appears that U.S. hemispheric policy under Obama will not substantially deviate from the status quo.
U.S.-Cuba relations look set to remain a domestic issue rather than a foreign policy concern, with the Treasury rather
than the State Department formulating U.S. strategy toward Cuba. Consequently, U.S.-Cuban relations, will likely remain
in the technocratic hands of Geithner, who presumably does not have many sophisticated insights into the critical
current state of affairs of U.S.-Latin American relations. The U.S. would do rather well to follow Senator Richard
Lugar’s (R-IN) advice and entirely get rid of the embargo apparatus rather than continue a policy that has failed the
country for 50 years.
While the current legislation is a worthy first step, it appears not to reflect this new regional reality and suffers
from being too little and too late. It is unlikely to generate the much-needed transformative approach that Washington
needs in order to regain international support for its policies. This modest piece of legislation coincides with Raul
Castro’s launch of a major reconfiguration of the Fidelista regime in which he removed Foreign Minister Felipe Perez
Roque and de facto Prime Minister Carlos Lage from their senior positions.
New legislation
While campaigning in Florida, then presidential candidate Obama made several references to Cuba, in which he expressed a
willingness to meet unconditionally with the Castro leadership, but added that he would keep the embargo in place. Obama
did, however, call for expanded travel rights for Cuban Americans which would allow them to return to the island more
frequently and remain there for a longer time. Obama also sought to ease regulations on sending remittances back to
relatives on the island. These proposed changes were based both on shifting attitudes of Cuban Americans who are
beginning to welcome more open relations with Cuba and recognize the ineffectiveness and counter-productiveness of
current regulations.
The recently-passed legislation, which will shortly be signed by the president, seeks to maintain a minimalist
commitment, by exclusively reversing the stringent laws and regulations of the Bush era. The new Bill will allow one
trip per person to the island annually to visit relatives, instead of once every three years as is permitted under
current rules. During that trip they will be able to remain on the island for an unlimited time, in contrast to existing
regulations, limiting trips to a mere 14 days. The new legislation also increases the allowance visitors can spend per
day in Cuba, and broadens the definition of relatives to include aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews; whereas in the
past, only immediate family members were listed under the more restrictive definition of grounds for travel to the
island. It remains to be seen how these apparent relaxations in law will translate into concrete policy in the wake of
Geithner’s concessions to the senators.
Trade
The catalyst behind the new legislation was more than just vague rhetorical promises uttered by Obama during the
campaign; one goal was to turn to a more open trade policy to help stimulate export earnings for the hard-pressed U.S.
economy by expanding bilateral trade opportunities with Cuba. Under current legislation, U.S. agriculture and medical
vendors could trade with Cuba, but had to be paid in cash, before the exports could leave the docks for Havana. The new
legislation will allow for payment to be made after the products arrive on the island in the normal manner. This
dispensation, along with a licensing procedure to expedite the sale of such items to the island, will open up new
commercial opportunities. By removing some of the more needlessly harsh terms of the embargo, the new legislation would
alter trading practices with the island, increasing the revenue generated by such exports, while hastening the process.
The Embargo was first enforced in 1958 under the Kennedy administration in response to what it saw as hostile actions
emanating from Havana. The now woefully outdated two-way hostility that helped fuse the embargo in the spirit of the
Cold War, has lost almost all international support and there is now almost a universal feeling that creative changes in
Washington’s current Cuba policy are badly needed.
According to a report issued by the UN General Assembly in October 2007, the 192-member body “voted overwhelmingly in
favor of ending the 45-year-old United States trade embargo against Cuba, marking the sixteenth year in a row… [that the
body] urged the lifting of the stiff sanctions imposed on the Caribbean island in 1962.” There were only four votes in
favor of maintaining the embargo: Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau and United States. With virtually no backing for the
continued application of the embargo, the policy had become more of a vestigial organ fomenting a standoff between the
two nations, rather than a meaningful policy with some prospect of success. While the new legislation will mark some
progress, it certainly doesn’t go far enough to even begin the process of seriously normalizing relations between the
U.S. and Cuba, which is what is needed to bring about any real change in the rest of the hemisphere.
The two sided opposition
While the House bill passed with a clear majority of 245 to 178, the opposition of anti-Castro Cuban American Senators
such as Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), as well as Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) has been unremitting. They
also have been backed by a small but vociferous Miami delegation of hard-right representatives, who believe that “the
[UN’s] recommendations largely focus on actions by the United States that will help the regime and provide it with
legitimacy and resources,” as was stated in a lengthy speech by Martinez on March 3. The Florida senator also recounted
the history of U.S. Cuba policy since Fidel took power, stating that while “U.S. policy is controversial…Standing up for
the rights of the Cuban people is something that the U.S. has done since the Kennedy Administration and if that is
controversial, it would seem more of a comment on others than on ourselves.”
Yet historically, U.S. policy has been ineffective in making an ascertainable impact on islander public opinion. While
the Castro regime seemed to effectively function, at times using U.S. hostilities as a source of self legitimization,
the Cuban nation continues to suffer in terms of shortages and an unsatisfactory standard of living.
Senator Menendez is using more than rhetoric and his trademark capacity for arrogance to leverage his opposition to the
legislation; he even threatened to hold up the confirmation of Obama choices for the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in protest against the Cuban “thaw” legislation.
Menendez believes that the current wording of the bill will “be extending a hand while the Castro regime maintains its
iron-handed clenched fist,” in remarks echoing those of Martinez. Now that the omnibus legislation has been passed, and
the relaxation of anti-Cuban provisions would be witnessed, the new provisions would terminate in September, when the
permanent legislation takes over from the temporary omnibus provisions.
Although, as we have seen, several anti-Castro senators strongly oppose the current bill for being soft on Castro and
containing even additional reduction of restrictions than they would prefer, President Obama’s call for the retention of
the embargo was little more than a gesture of good will for Miami. It was in keeping with the manner in which the White
House’s recent incumbents have viewed Latin American policy-making as somewhat of a day trip and an area not worth a
week’s vacation. Obama now needs to seriously reconsider an outdated and utterly sterile foreign policy towards Havana
which was bequeathed to him by his predecessor, and abolish the embargo entirely. But this does not seem to be in the
cards. The present policy is “ineffective” and has failed, according to the senior Republican member on the Foreign
Relations Committee, the influential Senator Richard Lugar “to achieve its stated purpose of bringing democracy to the
Cuban people.”
On February 23, the highly respected Indiana Republican issued a statement on U.S. Cuban policy in which he labeled the
embargo as “obsolete” and bringing no advantages to the United States. Such a robust assertion by a senior Republican
foreign policy pundit gives the Obama administration reason for concern. It projects the recently passed legislation as
being a forceful agent for “change,” but more of the same just wont do. Nor does the new legislation envisage taking a
determined series of additional steps to improve relations with what has become not only an increasingly important
player in Latin America, but today represents an important symbol, in the person of Fidel Castro, who has outlasted
eleven U.S. presidents in holding up a defiant definition of sovereignty and who has never failed to insist that Latin
America’s essential need is to come out from the eagle’s shadow.
Senator Lugar’s Intervention
Moreover, developing ties with the island state is essential for the U.S. if it wishes to remain a relevant geopolitical
player in the Western Hemisphere. Since Raúl Castro took power, Cuba has opened up or intensified preexisting strong
relations with a number of left leaning countries both in the Americas and further abroad. A good number of Latin
American leaders as well as Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have recently traveled to
Cuba to strengthen relations, thereby further deflating the myth that the U.S. has the Castro regime on the ropes.
Lugar’s report emphasizes that by “rejecting most tools of diplomatic engagement, the U.S. is left as a powerless
bystander, watching events unfold at a distance.”
When Lugar points out that the new administration can now open doors for a fresh strategy on Cuba, his language
inevitably implies criticism of the Bush administration’s policies. He observes that “recent leadership changes have
created an opportunity for the United States to reevaluate a complex relationship marked by misunderstanding, suspicion,
and open hostility.” The question is how his sortie will influence Obama. The President’s strategy of preserving the
embargo as some kind of counter-weight to its non-existent bilateral relations with Cuba, sharply reveals how little the
new president understands of current Latin American realities.
The Future
Raul Castro, on March 2, sprung a huge overhaul of the party leadership and the structure of Cuba’s government when he
announced a dozen changes affecting the party administration, which at least in part appears to be an effort to
demarcate Cuba under his leadership from Fidel’s reign. The changes included fusing ministries, demoting and promoting
officials and restructuring the group of officials in line to take power after Raul. Perhaps most unanticipated in the
personnel changes was the ousting of Felipe Perez Roque, who was viewed as the third most powerful man in Cuba and who
was expected to lead a transition government after Raul stepped down. He was replaced by Bruno Rodriguez, who had worked
directly under Roque. Raul had hinted at these changes for some time, in what may have also been an effort to open the
way to bolstering communications with Washington. Rodriguez, a Westernized veteran diplomat with 11 years experience as
Cuba’s delegate to the UN, has a firm grasp on US policy as a result of his time in New York. This could lead to
improved talks between the Obama administration and Raul’s post shake-up government.
Under the opening moves proposed by President Obama, as exemplified by Geithner’s “clarifications” of the then pending
omnibus legislation, the Obama administration is still holding on to the tattered embargo like an aging frat boy hanging
around his old stomping ground trying to relive the glory days. What the Treasury Secretary fails to realize is that a
strategy of containment and isolation is no longer a viable approach to U.S. -Cuban relations, since Havana has long
since broken out from its confining jurisdiction fixed on it by Washington. That policy at first was dictated by a long
list of those occupying the White House who had no problem maintaining a radical rightist ideological slant in their
Cuban policy. Today’s geopolitical landscape makes it impossible to hold onto prior notions, as Cuba is already proving
to be much different than what it was in previous decades. Cuba is no longer a proselytizing state attempting to
broadcast its Revolution across Latin America, nor is it infiltrating its battalions into the African wars of liberation
or providing an attractive territory for enemy military bases. The Cold War is long over, rendering the embargo entirely
obsolete in this new era of globalization and heightened respects of sovereignty.
During her campaign for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton wrote in Foreign Affairs, “U.S. foreign policy must
be guided by a preference for multilateralism, with unilateralism as an option when absolutely necessary to protect our
security or avert an avoidable tragedy.” Of course, Cuba presently poses no security threat. Rather, Havana today
provides a valuable opportunity for the U.S. to launch a policy of multilateralism and improve its relations with the
Latin American region by summarily lifting the embargo, which has been described by Senator Lugar and a thousand other
senior regional officials, as ineffective. Presidents Lula of Brazil, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of
Bolivia have made it quite clear that any real change in U.S. policy would have to begin with a rapprochement between
Cuba and the United States. Moreover, lifting the embargo would not only help to improve the quality of life for Cubans
by opening the country to trade and foreign direct investment, it also would help to revive a struggling economy. If
Clinton is to remain true to her pledge for greater multilateralism in U.S. diplomacy, it would be wise for her to make
Cuba a priority item on this country’s foreign policy agenda.
ENDS