"Some folks really know how to carry a grudge..."
Obama offers new hope on Cuba
ISMAEL FRANCISCO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cuban President Raul Castro speaks during the 50th anniversary celebration of the Cuban Revolution at the main plaza in Santiago, Cuba. (Jan. 1, 2009)
The United States sure knows how to hold a grudge.
It’s been nearly half a century since the United States imposed an embargo on Cuba. The Cold War has long ended, and now even Fidel Castro is fading into the background, but the embargo remains.
You won’t find many people outside the United States who support it — the United Nations has condemned the embargo as a violation of international law since the 1990s — but the U.S. has remained resolute. President Bush even enacted changes to bolster the economic sanctions in 2004.
But there is reason for optimism, at last.
President-elect Obama has pledged to ease the long-failed Cuba policy. Throughout his campaign, Obama has vowed to make it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives, and increase the amount of money they’re allowed to send home to their families.
After changes by the Bush administration, Cubans living in the United States are only allowed to visit the island once every three years, and can send back a maximum of $300 per household, quarterly, to immediate family members.
Since the election in November, pressure has been mounting for Obama to go even further than his initial promises. The leaders of 14 Caribbean nations called on Obama to lift the embargo at a summit in early December, and even American businesses have had enough.
In a letter to the President-elect, business associations including the American Farm Bureau Federation, Business Roundtable, National Retail Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, made their case for open trade with Cuba.
“Your administration has a unique opportunity to take steps to end nearly 50 years of isolation from Cuba and the Cuban people,” they said. “We support the complete removal of all trade and travel restrictions on Cuba. We recognize that change may not come all at once, but it must start somewhere, and it must begin soon.”
While the embargo has failed to bring about democracy in Cuba, its effects have been dramatic. Food shortages and a lack of clean water and medicine can all be at least partially blamed on the stubborn American policy. Add after a series of devastating hurricanes, it’s clear that the people of Cuba need help more than ever.
And there’s another advantage to lifting the embargo. As Mark Falcoff, an expert on Cuba and author of Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy, explains, without America as an enemy, the Cuban government would have no one to blame.
“The main argument for changing U.S. policy is that it shifts the onus of why there has been no improvement in political freedom in Cuba onto the Cuban government,” he says. “In effect, it robs them of using America as an excuse.”
It seems unlikely that Obama will go as far as to eradicate the embargo, but some changes are on the way. Beyond the remittances and travel for Cuban-Americans, it’s certainly possible that Obama will remove Cuba from the list of terrorist-sponsoring states and might even remove the travel ban.
Any or all of these would be steps in the right direction, but as Falcoff points out, for Cuba to move forward it’s important to remember that change must come from Havana too.
“What the U.S. does or doesn’t do, is not going to determine the outcome in Cuba,” he says.
When President Barrack Obama takes office, it will undoubtedly usher in a new era in Cuban-American relations. But whether or not it leads to a better Cuba is up to them.
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