Waiting for the Obama Generation Cubans

Possible negotiations with the Taliban, a seat at the negotiating table for Iran, come-hither gestures to Syria, and now even an opening for Cuba. Obama’s administration is fulfilling all its campaign promises one by one, but that’s not to say Washington is moving toward the left. It’s more likely that Obama is disappointing his liberal supporters who expected more decisive actions, even regarding Cuba.

The U.S. wants to relax trade and travel restrictions on Cuba for the first time since the days of President Carter, but for now the opening has had little to no effect in either country save for symbolism. Cuban-born Americans may now travel to Cuba once a year instead of once every three years, and they’re now permitted to spend $179 a day rather then the previous $50. Besides that, Cuba will now be able to import food and medicine from the United States without advance payment and without the necessity of prior approval. But the agreement doesn’t yet signal a complete end to the embargo that has been in place for over four decades.

To expect more than that would have been unrealistic because there’s a great deal of emotion and money in the form of reparations for nationalized property involved in the mini-cold war between Havana and Washington. The toughest stance against Cuba is, in fact, being taken by naturalized Cuban citizens in the United States in an attempt to bring down the socialist government altogether. But in the post-ideological Obama age, calls for a revision of America’s Cuba policy have been increasing for some time. Washington’s new pragmatists feel it’s time for people to admit that the fifty-year trade embargo has been a flop.

The new initiative is at best just the start of a lengthier process that will pick up strength in the coming years – namely when the Cuban exiles of the Obama generation are calling the shots and can experience their demonized homeland with curiosity instead of rejection.