The US and Cuba: Looking to the Future

The Cuban government arrived at the summit in Panama with a clear purpose: to seek investment originating from the North and to get closer to the United States to pave a path toward full diplomatic and, above all, economic relations.

That the summit closed without a final declaration remains a detail of little importance compared to the historic significance of the meeting between Barack Obama and Raul Castro that in fact marks the beginning of a new political and economic relationship between Washington and Latin America, not just with Cuba.

Cuba needs $2.5 billion in foreign investment to shore up its economy, which has been sluggish for decades. Because of this, the first thing that Rodrigo Malmierca, the Cuban minister of foreign trade, did was meet with Tom Donahue, who is the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in order to look for a way to bring U.S. investments to the island soon.

U.S. businessmen also see Cuba as an opportunity to do good business and need the repeal of the trade embargo imposed upon Havana by Washington in 1962 because if they are late in arriving, they could end up disadvantaged by investors from Europe, China and Canada, who already operate on the island or are about to arrive.

“Cuba has come here with a message of integration, to expand business and to diversify our economic relations” said Malmierca to the American business leader, words that he later repeated to the journalists who covered the summit, as if to dismiss any doubt that what is most important to the Cuban government is the economy and the best partner in sight is its closest neighbor, the United States.

The ideological speeches were downplayed in this summit, where pragmatism of the prowess of the North and the socialist island prevailed. When Obama said, “We must not be trapped in old ideology, at least I’m not trapped in it,” this was a message directed as much toward Latin America as to U.S. politicians: Some congresspeople and senators disapprove of Washington and Havana shaking hands after more than half a century of conflict.

If Cuba is a not threat to the United States, as Obama declared, and the U.S. can help lift the island out of its backwardness and poverty, the most practical thing is that both nations look to the future for the good of their societies, leaving aside the ideological differences that this very progress and future generations will take charge of dissipating.