The U.S. must be bold and normalize relations with Cuba
By Rolando Castañeda and Lorenzo Cañizares
Cuba is going through a crisis whose effects threaten the nation’s ability to sustain itself. The young people, generally well-educated, do not have the proper access to employment in their areas of specialization, they are insufficiently remunerated, have no access to new homes and find it difficult to travel abroad. For that reason, they emigrate and are reluctant to have any children. It is mandatory to overcome this situation, as the country’s population has been dropping since 2006.
In terms of the economy, Cuba has been seriously affected by the great international recession/financial crisis of 2008-09. While there are indications that the crisis is receding on an international level, everything indicates that the recovery will be slow due to the high rate of unemployment and to several other problems in the industrialized world that have still not been overcome.
President Obama has indicated that he wishes to establish a new attitude toward Cuba. His government has taken positive initiatives to eliminate travel restrictions and limits on cash remittances by Cuban-Americans, to reestablish a dialogue on topics of mutual interest, such as migration, and to restore cultural exchanges. For his part, President Raúl Castro has indicated on several occasions that the government of Cuba is willing to discuss “everything” with the United States.
From the end of the Cold War to the present, U.S. policy toward Cuba has been characterized by the initiatives to broaden and deepen measures involving the embargo, the isolation and the modification of the Cuban regime. We need only to cite, among others, the Torricelli Law, the Helms-Burton Law and the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba created by President George W. Bush. These measures have been strongly and almost unanimously rejected on an international level, as demonstrated by the annual voting at the United Nations on the embargo, and the demands for its repeal made at inter-American conferences.
A concrete proposal
It is necessary for the U.S. to adopt measures to transform the existing dynamics and inertia. Specifically, just as it initiated the measures described above, it should repeal the embargo without preconditions, as a step toward normalizing relations with the Cuban government. This type of action is supported, among others, by George Shultz, President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State (1982-89); Madeleine Albright, President William Clinton’s Secretary of State (1997-2001); William Ratcliff, a Hoover Institution scholar on Cuban affairs; the delegation of U.S. Catholic bishops who visited the island in August 2009; and Prof. Lars Schoultz of the University of North Carolin, who, in his detailed book “That Infernal Little Cuban Republic,” makes a strong and emphatic case for the U.S. to stop meddling in the island’s internal affairs because it is simply none of its business.
The proposal would, sooner than later, encourage Cuba’s ruling class — acting in the interest of the nation and its citizens — to take advantage of this great historic opportunity to utilize the island’s exceptional geographic location next to the U.S. The United States is Cuba’s natural market; it reduces the cost of transportation and communications and offers the possibility to complement many activities with the greater world market, which generates approximately 30 percent of the world’s GNP. Additionally, the U.S. has the capacity to advance the world’s economy and propel Cuba forward with its own advancement. This opportunity is presented in a Latin American and world context that is very favorable for its concretization.
Some Cuban-Americans criticize the Cuban government, with reason, for not liberalizing the practice of traveling abroad but at the same time support Washington’s travel restrictions. This, in addition to being contradictory, is an attack on the basic civil and human rights. Also, it is absurd and contradictory to ask the Cuban government to make changes on the basis of mistaken and failed policies, while supporting U.S. policies that are equally mistaken and failed.
The proposed normalization of relations does not mean that the U.S. should provide economic aid or grant similar concessions to the Cuban government, because this implies an affinity of political interests that does not exist.
However, the proposal does mean that Cuba could immediately receive an important flow of American tourists that would change the nation’s economic dynamics. Our young compatriot Rafael Romeu, at the International Monetary Fund, has done two serious and detailed studies that show Cuba’s great tourism potential for the U.S. That flow would increase the sale of American agricultural products to the island to meet the needs of tourists and nationals. It would also allow Cuba to explore its oil deposits in the Caribbean, a search that is practically paralyzed yet could transform the economic and financial expectations of Cuba.
Finally, we believe that the Cuban nation should also be bolder in its stance on the future of the nation, in the manner of Albright, Shultz, Ratcliff, the Catholic bishops, Schoultz and Julia Sweig, who advocates the return of the Guantánamo base to Cuba.
The discussions about the future of the nation should not be limited to the present conflicts and disagreements between Cubans on the island and overseas. These will be overcome in the future, sooner rather than later. Once that is done, we’ll have to carry out a normalization in all ways, along with national reconciliation and family reunification. Let us waste no more time.
Rolando Castañeda is a Cuban-American economist, retired from the Inter-American Development Bank. He lives in Washington, D.C. Lorenzo Cañizares is a Cuban-American expert on labor relations, a specialist in organization for the Pennsylvania State Education Association. He lives in Harrisburg, Pa.
