What will Cuba gain from its relations with U.S.?

HAVANA — One year has passed since the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, a significant step in the so-called “process toward the normalization of relations” that both governments predicted would be long and complicated.

The American side has declared that its objective is “to change the Cuban regime by other methods,” and many people, in Cuba and outside, have pointed to the toxicity of these relations for the Cuban socialist system.

Assuming the most negative connotations, it’s worthwhile to analyze the reasons why the Cuban government has accepted the challenge, aware of the dangers and difficulties that are very much included in the package.

Recently, Lina Pedrasa Rodríguez, Cuba’s minister of Finance and Prices, said that 54 percent of the national budget is invested in the sectors of education, public health and social aid.

This fact illustrates the essence of the Cuban socialist model, explains the objective bases that serve to support the popular consensus and its ideological expressions, as well as their particularity to what’s happening elsewhere in the world.

President Raúl Castro has just reported on the economic difficulties besetting the nation, which explains the enormous complexities involved in carrying out this societal project in the domestic and external conditions in which we live.

It has been proven that economic growth, by itself, does not guarantee a country’s political and social stability, much less the equity of its public policies, but it’s similarly impossible to have an effective strategy of social welfare without an economy that supports it.

This is the dilemma that faces Cuba at this time and the scenario in which we must analyze the process of economic transformations now in progress, as well as the advantages and disadvantages that our relations with the U.S. imply.

Beyond its successes and errors, the design of Cuba’s socialist economy was conceived for a world that has ceased to exist. With it stumbled the markets, the financial mechanisms, the political complementarity that sustained it, and the paradigms that until then defined “real socialism” and global balance, originating the deepest economic crisis in the nation’s history.

Bereft of other alternatives, Cuba had no other option than to try to insert itself into the capitalist international market under the worst possible conditions, because of the existence of the economic blockade and political pressures of the United States.

The shortage of natural resources, the lack of access to the world’s most important market and the eventuality of dealing with U.S. sanctions was translated into a limited demand for Cuban products as well as — in most cases — the imposition of leonine conditions for economic relations. This has been reflected in an increase in the prices of imports, onerous credit, and limited foreign investment.

Relations with the United States — if they finally lead to an eventual lifting of the blockade, as is to be expected if most of the forecasts come true — would permit not only access to the best offers from that country but also change the scale and environment of Cuba’s economic relations with the rest of the world. Therein lie the main advantages of the new context.

To some, the attractives offered by the U.S. market to Cuba and its natural complementarity must inexorably lead to an economic dependence that would be accompanied by political consequences for the nation’s sovereignty. In fact, much of the U.S. strategy is based on this premise, but — viewed even from the left — many believe the same.

However, seen from another perspective, the margins of competitiveness derived from these relations with respect to third parties offer a greater freedom to Cuba to choose its partners and establish conditions that are more beneficial for the country, diversifying the possibilities of its international market.

Cuba’s advantages of geographic location can operate in a similar sense in world commerce from and with the United States. Within this scheme, the development of the Special Zone of Mariel acquires value but we can also notice the possibilities offered by international tourism, which explains the interest shown by U.S. tourism agencies and the advances achieved in negotiations within that sphere.

Human capital, as well as the scientific and technological advances achieved by Cuba in certain specialties, is the nation’s main economic asset. The lack of an internal labor market that can utilize it properly has led to the emigration of many professionals or the degradation of their qualifications, as they switch to better-paid jobs in other sectors.

Relations with the United States, where the so-called “industry of knowledge” is the largest in the world and constitutes a priority among its strategic lines of development, offers opportunities for the utilization in Cuba of this human capital and the sale of national products with a high added value not only in the U.S. market but also on an international scale.

The same can happen with the sale of medical services and other specialties — today one of the main sources of income — that, freed from the bindings and connotations imposed by U.S. policy, can find markets in a broader range of countries.

Besides, relations serve for the profitable utilization of this Cuban potential (with humanitarian purposes) worldwide and offers advantages for the health security of both countries. Agreements have already been signed on this subject and various instruments of collaboration are being explored.

Cultural exchanges with the United States and its possible ramifications to other countries can not only contribute to the spread of Cuban culture in the world but also constitute another line of exports that Cuba can exploit under quite advantageous conditions, given the recognized quality of these products.

As has happened till now, the development of relations facilitates the adoption of bilateral and multinational accords for the care of the environment, air and naval traffic, and the protection of common borders against crimes such as drug trafficking, human trafficking and terrorism, all of which are issues of national security for both countries.

Relations also establish a more adequate climate to resolve the immigration problems that are still pending, whose incompatibility with its objectives are evident and are the target of criticism within U.S. society itself.

Relations between the two countries facilitate Cuba’s links with the Cuban-American community, whose evolution has been one of the causes that determined the change in U.S. policy and constitutes a strategic problem for the country due to its social, cultural, political and economic connotations to the internal aspect of Cuban society.

Notwithstanding the fact that tensions will remain as a result of the U.S. policies aimed at promoting a regime change in Cuba, the reestablishment of relations at least limits the more aggressive actions, particularly terrorism and a threat of military invasion, a major achievement if we compare it with the conditions in which Cuba has had to live for half a century.

It is true that the new state of relations, even if it advances with more or less speed in the next few years, does not eliminate the contradictions that have marked the history of the two countries and does not constitute an irreversible process, inasmuch as it depends on junctures that are outside Cuba’s control.

In sum, U.S. and foreign capital in general arrives in Cuba bearing two faces, establishing an unprecedented and complicated scenario for the Cuban socialist model but facilitating its insertion in the global economy, in line with a strategy imposed by a reality that offers no other alternatives.

The issue lies on knowing how to decide, which in the end is not determined by the economy but by politics. The government’s efficacy relies on this.

In its favor, Cuba has a degree of political independence that constitutes one of its few luxuries. Paraphrasing the title of an old novel, “fate is in our hands,” so, in this complex equation that involves relations with the United States, the fundamental variable continues to be the articulation of the Cuban people’s will and intelligence — the main protagonist in this story.