Cuba: A Good Investment

Cuba is an island located 150 kilometers off the American coast, and for more than half a century, it has been an abscess in relations between the United States and Latin America. By lancing the boil, President Obama makes a gesture that is as overdue as it is significant. It is now up to Congress to put an end to the embargo.

In diplomacy, it is democracy and human rights that take the blame. Barack Obama was expected to bring their promotion out into the open on Wednesday when he announced that Washington and Havana were officially re-establishing diplomatic relations and re-opening their embassies. It is not too strong to say that the advance is historic, even if we have to qualify that. The fact remains that the United States does not in general worry about dealing with repressive regimes. Beyond the legacy of the Cold War and Florida’s electoral concerns, which blocked hopes of a thaw, Washington has been, to say the least, a little frustrated by the resistance of this small country to its subjugation to American interests. Although a state has been imposed on Cuba that does not tolerate freedom of thought, at the same time, its people have developed a wonderful independence of spirit.

The embassies will soon be re-opened. In a few weeks, John Kerry will go to Havana, the first secretary of state to set foot there since 1945. President Obama will then visit Cuba next year. It goes without saying that the Cuban question will be an important theme in the legislative and presidential elections of 2016. It is Congress that must conclude the rapprochement and complete the normalization of diplomatic relations announced by the White House by lifting the economic embargo, which has been in place since 1962.

On this issue, as on many others, including the nuclear agreement with Iran, gay rights, abortion and access to health care, the Republicans, who are in the majority in Congress, are swimming desperately against the tide of American public opinion, including that of Americans of Cuban origin. Jeb Bush, demagogue and Republican presidential candidate, has argued that Obama’s gesture “will legitimize repression in Cuba,”* whereas lifting the embargo may be the best course of action.

In fact, the economic blockade has so many holes that it is increasingly resembling a Swiss cheese. Even though it was strengthened in 1996 by the Helms-Burton Act, it has become a hodgepodge. Mr. Obama has twice eased the embargo as much as he possibly could without getting the green light from Congress. And before him, President Bill Clinton had also ordered measures to ease the embargo in 1998. This resulted in the United States once again becoming one of the principal trading partners of the island, especially in the agribusiness sector, and in nearly 100,000 Americans visiting Cuba each year.

History may perhaps recall the president who made every possible effort to sign up the United States for a more multilateral view of the world. It is in this spirit that, in Mr. Obama’s words, a “new chapter” has been opened in diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, and, by extension, with the rest of Latin America, if Washington does not, due to bad habits, make the same mistake with Venezuela. Besides, the embargo against Havana was an extremely useless thorn in the side of America’s relations with those of its Western partners — including Canada — that do do business with Cuba. The United States had every interest in getting rid of it.

And how will the people of Cuba fare in all this? American commerce has already begun to disembark, and in the medium term, as the trend increases, the country will no doubt experience a property boom. Of course, this will be at the expense of both the poor and the environment. Havana will be transformed into a giant construction site, and Cuba’s rich will be delighted since the warm spell will make them richer. How else will Raúl Castro manage to prevent this thaw in relations from leading to an opening up of politics? Given the geographic proximity of the island to the United States, it is difficult to believe that the Cuban regime could keep the opposition in the cells for long. And all this means that, thanks to Mr. Obama, the Americans have made a very good investment.

*Editor’s note: Correctly translated, this quote could not be verified.