Cuba Strengthens Ties with the United States

The diplomatic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States has occurred 56 years after the breakdown of relations between the two nations, after pressure from Pope Francis and other international requests, including the intervention of the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is rightly concerned about the huge amount of natural gas that is being sent each month to the Caribbean island and which the Russians need to sustain their economy.

Russia maintains a dangerous confrontation in the Crimea region, which possesses the bulk of Russia’s troops, and, most importantly, the natural gas it needs.

Russia is not greatly interested in the future of Cuba, a country that is concerned about the turn its economy has taken. For this reason, Raul Castro, substitute for his brother Fidel who was in power, has changed his political and economic position in the last two years in order to provide a timid diplomatic opening to his citizens abroad, mainly in the United States. He has also opened Cuba’s borders to the import of products of the modern globalized world in which we live, which was previously forbidden.

The world is changing, and relations between nations are suffering a phenomenal change in which everyone has to do what they can to adapt to the new order.

Therefore, the Cuban regime has contributed to an approach with the Yankees — situated so close and yet so far — while Barack Obama, the U.S. president, has seen this as an attractive opportunity to do business with Cuba and to strengthen links, peace and harmony. Moreover, in this way, Vladimir Putin is getting out of his commitment to Fidel Castro by leaving the Cubans to see how they manage to survive on their own. History does not stop, but changes as time passes.