The U.S. is officially in Cuba now. After 54 years of a tense and frozen relationship, Secretary of State John Kerry has raised the flag of his country in the very same region that has given the most problems to American politics in decades. He is the highest-level official from Washington who has visited Cuba in a very long time; a milestone in the recent history of both countries.
This fact is the last step of the events that began in the capital of the United States last July 20, when the Cuban embassy was reopened. Dissidents and opponents of the Castro brothers' regime have not been invited; that is what I call discretion and deliberation. The democratic diplomacy in the White House knows how to do its job. If the dissidents had been invited, nobody knows how the long-lived revolutionaries would have reacted, since they have always considered their opponents on the island as treacherous mercenaries.
Kerry, along with Roberta Jacobson, key figure in the American diplomacy of this process, is meeting up with his counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez. Meanwhile, in Florida, the Republicans, who are against the normalization of relations with Cuba, keep claiming from the rooftops that these concessions to Havana are a "reward without benefits." However, the pending negotiations to be carried out by Washington and Havana will take place in the ideal diplomatic setting.
Ahora, Estados Unidos técnicamente está dentro de Cuba. Luego de haber mantenido por más de 54 años una relación bilateral congelada y enfrentada, el secretario de Estado John Kerry iza la bandera de su país en el territorio del estado que más dolores de cabeza ha ocasionado a la política exterior estadounidense en décadas. Su presencia, la del más alto nivel de un funcionario que Washington haya enviado en ese largo tiempo, marca un nuevo hito en la historia reciente entre ambos países. Con la reapertura de la misión diplomática se completa el episodio iniciado en la capital norteamericana el pasado 20 de julio, cuando se abrió nuevamente la embajada cubana. Los disidentes u opositores al régimen de los hermanos Castro no han sido invitados; eso se llama discreción y ponderación. La diplomacia demócrata de la Casa Blanca sabe su trabajo. Haberlo hecho pudo traslucir un gesto inoportuno con exiguas posibilidades para calcular la reacción de los longevos revolucionarios, quienes siempre han mirado a sus opositores en la isla como mercenarios traidores. Kerry, quien estará acompañado de Roberta Jacobson, figura clave de la diplomacia estadounidense en este proceso, se reunirá con su homólogo Bruno Rodríguez. Mientras tanto, en Florida, los republicanos que se oponen a la normalización de las relaciones con Cuba no dejan de gritar a los cuatro vientos que las concesiones a La Habana son como una “recompensa sin beneficios”. Sin embargo, mirando el futuro, las negociaciones pendientes que emprenderán Washington y La Habana tendrán el marco diplomático idóneo esperado.
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A summit that would normally send a reassuring message ... faces total uncertainty thanks to the weakness of the United States. The only person to blame for this is Trump.
The Beijing summit did not produce a major agreement between the great powers on the region, but it firmly established that Middle Eastern crises are now deeply tied to the great-power dialogue.
During the Cold War, the United States occupied the apex of this triangular dynamic, pitting China and the USSR against each other. Today, it is Beijing that occupies that apex.
A summit that would normally send a reassuring message ... faces total uncertainty thanks to the weakness of the United States. The only person to blame for this is Trump.