Hemisphere Volume 25 Article 1 Issue 1 The United States and Cuba after D17

2016 The nitU ed States and Cuba after D17

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Abstract With the D17 announcement, US-Cuba policies were suddenly and dramatically transformed after decades of stale and repetitive relations. Guest editor Jorge Duany, director of FIU’s famed Cuban Research Institute, invited a group of leading experts to examine the repercussions of the restoration of diplomatic ties and discuss the intractable obstacles to the full restoration of relations between the two countries. Although normalization of diplomatic relations and the prospect of change have produced an exciting time for scholarship and policy analysis, the conclusion fifteen months later is that rapproachement has been slower and more modest than expected.

This issue is available in Hemisphere: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/lacc_hemisphere/vol25/iss1/1 A MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAS VOLUME 25 • SUMMER 2016 • HTTP://LACC.FIU.EDU

The United States and Cuba after D17 DIALOGUE ACADEMIA DISSEMINATE LINKAGES BUSINESS MEDIA TOPICS Hemisphere LEARN INDUSTRYDEBATEETHICS VOLUME 25 • SUMMER 2016 • HTTP://LACC.FIU.EDU INFORMATION CONTENT DEPTH

CULTURE INVESTIGATION STATISTICS UNRAVEL LOCATION IN THIS ISSUE CULTIVATE TRAINING EXCHANGE POLICY REVEAL SPARK NEWS ANALYSIS LETTER FROM THE EDITOR INSIGHT INTERPRET INTERNATIONAL Frank O. Mora...... 3 REALITY EDUCATION FREEDOM FINANCE NETWORKS ILLUMINATE TEACH DECIPHER BEATS LETTER FROM THE GUEST EDITOR INTERPRETATION GOVERNMENT Jorge Duany...... 4 EXPLAIN ILLUMINATE

EXAMINATION PUBLISHING RELIABLE FORUM FEATURE LEADERSHIP INTERACTIVE US-Cuba Economic Relations: Opportunities and Challenges SOURCES RESEARCH Carmelo Mesa-Lago ...... 7 REPORTS

TRUTH New Policies, Old Politics: Change and Changelessness in US-Cuba Relations Louis A. Pérez, Jr...... 16 EXPOSE Diplomatic Normality and Its Enemies LACC: Rafael Rojas...... 18 US-Cuba Relations: Waiting for Real Change Celebrating Thirty-Seven Years of Excellence Nora Gámez Torres ...... 20 Working hard to ensure that people following Latin America and the Caribbean The uban-AmericanC Community after D17 have access to dependable, accurate and current information about the issues Jorge Duany ...... 22 that matter most. Cuba’s Communist State Is Now a Client of Its Capitalist Entrepreneurs Tim Padgett ...... 26 LACC supports enhanced understanding of hemispheric politics, business, society and culture through: COMMENTARIES n Academic research and teaching by more than 200 LACC faculty experts Gelato and a Balmy Evening Ride in an American Convertible: To Be or Not to Be in the New Cuba Ruth Behar ...... 30 n High-quality analysis available as events unfold n Interdisciplinary projects that reach audiences across the globe Cuban Nationalism and the Future of US-Cuba Relations Michael Parmly ...... 32 n Critical training programs to educate a new generation of leaders Cuba and the 2016 Presidential Elections Dario Moreno and Maria Ilcheva ...... 34

Canada’s Island in the Sun? The Impact of D17 Catherine Krull ...... 36

PHOTO ESSAY Cuba after D17 Forging linkages across the Americas through education, research, outreach, and dialogue. Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo ...... 38

lacc.fiu.edu @FIULACC /FIULACC FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Hemisphere readers:

As my colleague Jorge Duany indicates in the Letter from the Guest Editor in this issue of Hemisphere, prior to December 17, 2014 (D17) discussion about Cuba and US-Cuba relations seemed, for the most part, stale Hemisphere and repetitive. Not much new was worthy of reporting or analytical discussion. Cuba was not moving as quickly as many hoped toward economic and social reform, and in the political realm, Raúl Castro’s Cuba was frozen EDITORIAL STAFF in time. US-Cuba relations suffered from similar paralysis, despite President Obama’s policy changes in the area of purposeful travel and some people-to-people programs. The incarceration of Alan Gross, the US government Founding Editor Anthony P. Maingot contractor sentenced in 2011 to 15 years in prison for bringing satellite and communications equipment to Editor Frank O. Mora members of Cuba’s Jewish community, and the continued imprisonment in the US of three of the Cuban Guest Editor Jorge Duany intelligence agents known as the “Cuban Five,” posed formidable obstacles to any kind of rapprochement.

Associate Editor Liesl Picard With the D17 announcement, US-Cuba relations were suddenly and dramatically transformed, shifting faster Copy Editor Alisa Newman than our ability to make sense of the overall impact on Cuba’s political economy. Normalization of diplomatic Graphic Designer Genesis Sikaffy relations and the prospect of change have produced an exciting time for scholarship and policy analysis. Florida

Production Manager Yessenia Abolila International University (FIU) is at the forefront of analyzing and engaging the process and impacts of this historic development, across multiple disciplines. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD As the flagship publication of the Kimberly Green Latin America and Caribbean Center (LACC), Hemisphere Uva de Aragón Ana María Bidegain David Bray José Miguel Cruz dedicates this special issue to tracking and analyzing the impact of diplomatic normalization on US-Cuba economic Carol Damian Eduardo A. Gamarra relations, the Cuban-American community, Cuban nationalism and other important areas. I am grateful to Jorge A. Douglas Kincaid Sarah J. Mahler Duany, director of FIU’s Cuban Research Institute (CRI), one of the preeminent centers for the study of Cuba and Andrea Mantell Seidel Félix E. Martín Juan Martínez Ana Roca Cuban Americans in the United States, for putting together a superb lineup of scholars to examine the complex Allan Rosenbaum Mark B. Rosenberg aftermath of D17. Richard Tardanico Victor M. Uribe-Uran

President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba in March 2016 was not the culmination, but an important milestone in Hemisphere (ISSN 08983038) is published once a year by the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, what is to be a long but irreversible process that began on D17. It marked just one more step toward engaging and Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, Florida International University. Copyright © 2016 by the empowering the Cuban people, helping change current dynamics and creating space for Cubans, as the president Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. stated during his extraordinary speech in Havana, to determine their own future. During the coming months and years, LACC and CRI will continue to engage not only the scholarly and policy communities through their various Hemisphere is dedicated to provoking debate on the problems, initiatives, and achievements of the Americas. Responsibility for the views expressed lies solely with the authors. Editorial, Circulation and Advertising Offices: Kimberly Green Latin research and outreach activities, but also, through the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University, Modesto A. Maidique Campus, DM 353, Miami, will partner with other FIU components to participate in the University’s goal of increasing ties with its academic Florida, 33199, Tel.: (305) 348-2894, Fax: (305) 348-3953, E-mail: [email protected], http://lacc.fiu.edu counterparts in Cuba. Cover Image: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Frank O. Mora Director & Professor Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center Florida International University

Hemisphere Volume 25 5 FROM THE GUEST EDITOR

When I came to Florida International University in August 2012, relations between the United States and Cuba seemed frozen in time, still characterized by Cold War tensions. Since December 17, 2014 (D17), many pieces of the puzzling connections between the two countries have shifted, some drastically, others more imperceptibly. On that date, President Barack Obama announced major changes in US policy toward Cuba, including taking steps toward reestablishing diplomatic relations, reviewing Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, and facilitating certain types of trade and travel by US citizens to the island. On May 29, 2015, President Obama removed Cuba from the US Department of State’s terrorism list; in July 2015, the United States and Cuba restored diplomatic relations and reopened embassies in their respective capitals, and in March 2016 President Obama’s trip to Cuba marked the first time in 88 years that a sitting US president visited the island. Journalists, pundits and academics rushed to analyze this diplomatic milestone, portending a new era in US-Cuba relations.

Unfortunately, the practical outcomes of the US-Cuba rapprochement have been slow, modest and largely unilateral. The two highlights of 2015 were the announcements of the resumption of direct postal service and, eventually, commercial flights between Cuba and the United States. High-ranking representatives of both governments have met several times to discuss matters of common interest, from migration and human trafficking to confiscated properties and human rights. The US government has made extensive amendments to existing sanctions against Cuba, easing trade, communication, travel, remittances and other financial transactions with the island. The Cuban government, in turn, has insisted on four major conditions for “normalizing” relations with the United States: lifting the US embargo, returning the US naval base in Guantánamo, repealing the Cuban Adjustment Act, and discontinuing US broadcasting activities to Cuba (i.e., Radio and TV Martí). At the time of this writing (April 2016), serious impediments remain to the full normalization of relations.

This volume of Hemisphere examines the numerous repercussions of the restoration of diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba. Among other questions, it assesses some of the intractable obstacles to relations between the two countries, the economic opportunities created by an eventual lifting of the US embargo, and the potential role of the diaspora in the future of the Cuban nation. I invited a group of leading experts on Cuban affairs from various disciplines in the social sciences and humanities to reflect upon the significance of D17 for the two former Cold War adversaries. Regrettably, I did not receive the contributions I requested from three scholars residing in Cuba in time for publication. Nevertheless, the volume samples a wide range of opinions on the economic, political and social consequences of the rapprochement between the US and Cuban governments. The result, I hope, is a balanced, kaleidoscopic and insightful treatment of many of the difficult issues raised by the new US policy toward Cuba.

Jorge Duany Director & Professor Cuban Research Institute Florida International University

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

6 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 7 FEATURE

US-Cuba Economic Relations: Opportunities and Challenges by Carmelo Mesa-Lago

fter 55 years of hostility, on to examine the constraints and Obama’s amendments to existing the announcement challenges to a full normalization of regulations eliminate some red by Presidents Obama relations, and ends by inquiring why tape and allow 12 categories of and Castro initiating economic results have been so slow travel, including educational, the normalization of to emerge. cultural, sports, religious and relationsA on December 17, 2014 humanistic activities, family visits, (D17) opened an important and I. MAJOR ECONOMIC journalism, professional research/ positive new stage between the OPPORTUNITIES FOR meetings, and “support for the two nations. The pronouncement THE US AND CUBA Cuban people.” Major airlines plan generated great expectations on Two well-known Cuban to fly to Cuba and travel agencies both sides for rapid and successful economists have praised the push are authorized to operate without progress, but was not grounded toward normalization. According to special license. A tour package for on knowledge of extant and Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, the one week costs about $5,000 per future obstacles. Many journalists, results will be more in the medium- person, with prices likely to fall as businessmen, relatives and friends and long-term than in the short- competition increases. Travelers are asked me about the imminent term, but will improve the living permitted to bring back $400 in economic boom in Cuba, the standards of the Cuban people. goods ($100 in rum and tobacco) reconstruction of Havana, the Ricardo Torres stresses the historical and can use US credit cards, with huge profits that US companies ties between the two countries, no per diem rate (it used to be will accrue (McDonald’s will pop the fact that the US is the major $188). MasterCard, American up all over the island!), or how importer and technology leader in Express, Netflix and Twitter plan to arrange a beach vacation in the world, Cuba’s need for foreign to expand operations in Cuba, but Varadero. People thought that capital, and the importance of banking and telecommunications Cuba was now fully unlocked for Cuban Americans’ knowledge and are essential prerequisites. Americans and virtually all assumed international contacts. The In the first half of 2015, the that the Helms-Burton Act (referred most promising economic areas number of US visitors to Cuba to in Cuba as the “blockade”) was are evaluated below. jumped 50% and a higher upturn gone. Many well-intentioned friends is expected for the entire year. wrongly assured me: “Now you 1. Tourism. With a forecast of one to two won’t have any trouble attending Tourism currently accounts for million US tourists, gross revenue academic events in Cuba.” Although 52% of total foreign investment in from the tourism sector should many positive steps have been Cuba. The effects of normalization increase from $3 billion to $4–$5 taken, mostly on the US side, the could begin to be seen faster than billion annually. Benefits will post-D17 dream will take a long in other sectors of the economy, but mainly accrue to the state but time to realize. This article evaluates the full results will take more time. also to rentals of private homes/ the potential short-, medium- and Cuba’s advantages are its proximity rooms (which currently lodge long-term economic impacts of the to the US and its lure as “forbidden 21% of all US tourists), paladares normalization process that began on fruit” following the 54-year ban on (small, privately owned family D17. It begins by identifying and travel to the island, prompting an restaurants), taxi drivers and analyzing opportunities for both outpouring of interest in visiting tourist guides. sides in key economic areas, goes the island and a “discovery” flow.

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2. Trade in goods and services. needs. As of 2008, Cuba imported decline in oil prices, but Portfolios shut down temporarily. The Soviets Although Cuban economists material imports from the socialist The new regulations permit trade $710 million in US foodstuffs, of Investment Opportunities in also started construction of a plant recommend giving priority to camp. These ceased after the bloc’s relations (imports and exports) making this country its main food 2014 and 2015 gave priority to in Las Camariocas; after the Soviet investment in agriculture, only collapse, and currently the island with Cuba but are restricted to the supplier and fourth largest trading high-seas exploration and Russia collapse, China pledged to complete 4% of foreign investment is in this suffers from a severe shortage of non-state sector: self-employed, partner. US products are of good recently granted Cuba $1 billion to it but soon withdrew as well. field, and so far only one Brazilian medicine. Exports of pharmaceutical microbusinesses, non-agricultural quality, price competitive, and closer try for the third time. Venezuela currently has the project, company has invested in the sugar products—excluding medicine but and service cooperatives, private than other providers (90 miles, or In recent years, Venezuela has but the plant is not in operation. sector. Current regulations allow for probably including biotechnology— and usufruct farmers, and the 2% of the 4,000 miles that stretch sent Cuba 105,000 barrels of oil The US has the technology and US export of tools, seeds, fertilizer accounted for 5% of total exports building and repair of dwellings. between Havana and Buenos Aires per day, meeting 60% of domestic capital to renew Che Guevara and and other supplies, but only to in 2013. US exporters/importers must or São Paulo). The US Agricultural need. In 2007, the Cienfuegos oil Camariocas, but current regulations private and usufruct farmers. Under normalization, a mutually provide proof that their Cuban Coalition for Cuba, the National refinery, built with Venezuelan help, prevent exporting Cuban ore to the fruitful exchange could evolve partners are in the non-state sector. Corn Growers, and the Illinois Soy produced 65,000 barrels a day. US or investing in such facilities. 7. Biotechnology and between Cuban and US universities The Cuban government demands Bean Association are all lobbying to Under the arrangement, Venezuela pharmaceutics. and biotechnology institutes. state trade without restrictions. fully restore trade relations. exported crude oil to be refined 6. Agriculture. In 1986–1991, Cuba created and Cuban experience and knowledge About 50 Cuban exports are in Cienfuegos and Cuba sold In the last 55 years, Cuban expanded the “Havana Scientific in biotechnology, neuroscience, now authorized to enter the US, 3. Remittances. the surplus on the world market. agriculture has had a dismal Pole” with significant investments immunology, vaccines and other including clothing, footwear, art, Current regulations eliminate It’s not easy to assess if crude performance due to excessive in equipment, technology and fields would be beneficial to US cosmetics, textiles, jewels, leather, previous limits on non-family exports have declined due to the centralization. Land is mostly expertise. The project encompasses scientists and in turn, Cuban furniture, bedding, mattresses, remittances (which could be severe deterioration of Venezuela’s in state hands or controlled seven centers that specialize in scientists could gain from advanced clocks, musical instruments, movies, invested in microbusiness). In economy, especially since any by incompetent state-run and interferon and genetic crop US technologies. Current regulations wood, stone, paper, plastic and 2014, about $4 billion in family decline appears to be offset by the -subsidized coops; farmers face a improvements; immunological won’t help in these fields because rubber articles, ceramics, glassware, remittances entered Cuba, Netherlands Antilles; however, lack of economic incentives; and analysis; identification of congenital Cuba’s centers are state monopolies cement, hats, umbrellas, toys, representing 7% of the island’s GDP exports of oil derivatives from Cuba a highly inefficient state monopoly deformations and hypothyroidism; and exports and imports are banned. machinery, electrical equipment, and its second leading hard-currency through third parties decreased has a stranglehold on purchasing vaccines against meningococcal vessels, and medical and surgical source. This figure will probably by one-third in 2013–2014, and and distribution. Raúl Castro’s infections and encephalomyelitis; 8. Banking. equipment. Most of these goods are increase in 2015, with the capacity a petrochemical project with structural reforms try to tackle such surgery/treatment of neurological Almost all banking in Cuba is under not produced by microenterprises to boost the non-state sector. A Venezuela was suspended. flaws, calling for distribution of idle disorders (cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s state ownership/management. and some not even by the state. national survey conducted in Cuba US technology and experience state land in usufruct, increased disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke); State banks collect people’s savings Also permitted are non-state in March 2015 reported that only would support oil exploration on autonomy for coops, supply of treatment of brain diseases; and use them to give loans to state export services, e.g., hiring skilled 11% of recipients of remittances the high seas, on shore and inland; some inputs, and microcredit for biopharmaceuticals for the treatment enterprises and state-controlled Cuban workers to carry out legal invest them in microbusinesses, but increase extractive efficiency; and private and usufruct farmers. So far, of cancer and other non-infectious agricultural coops. Fifteen branches activities, translations, bookkeeping, 70% said they would like to do so. postpone the depletion of deposits, the reforms have failed to increase diseases; and nuclear medicine. of international banks provide software programming and language making Cuba more independent agricultural output: the annual In their early stages, the seven services to foreign customers (but instruction. One key question is 4. Oil and energy. of Venezuelan oil and diversifying growth rate averaged 1% in 2010– centers generated substantial hard not Cubans), and loans to foreign whether these goods and services Cuba’s crude oil production its investment and oil partners. But 2013, with production of most currency from selling patents in the and mixed enterprises not eligible would be competitive in the US peaked at 3.7 million metric tons first, the embargo must be lifted. items falling below 2005 and US and exporting vaccines to Latin for government loans. The poor market. Approved US imports to in 2003, thereafter stagnated, even 1989 rates. America. In 1992, due to the crisis telecommunications infrastructure, Cuba’s non-state sector include and in 2012 was 18% below the 5. Nickel. Official preliminary figures for caused by the USSR’s disappearance, low quality of network data and computers, software, personal zenith; natural gas output peaked Cuba has the world’s fifth largest 2014 boasted an increase of 13.3% the Cuban government transferred scarcity of ATMs are all factors telecom equipment, animal fodder in 2007 at 1.2 billion cubic meters nickel reserves. Production peaked in agricultural output but significantly most of the centers’ revenue to that restrict the banking system. and medicine. The only imports and had declined 12% by 2013. at 76,500 tons in 2001 but fell 11% underestimate 2013 production; the state, returning only a fraction In 2008–2009, the credibility permitted to the state sector are Causes of the fall were maturity of by 2013. Nickel is Cuba’s main more reliable comparisons showed and thereby dramatically reducing of state banks suffered when the food, animals, fodder and medicine. existing deposits, stagnation of new export but a decline in production a sharp decrease. The Minister of their investment. By the first government froze the bank accounts A Freedom to Export to Cuba Act deposits, and Cuba’s cancelation of and world prices reduced its export Agriculture acknowledged that, decade of this century, some of of foreign investors and suppliers. introduced in the US Senate would exploration/production contracts value by 29% in 2010–2012. The despite all efforts to improve output, the centers were languishing due More recently, the government has eliminate all trade restrictions, with two Canadian companies. island has four nickel plants, the results were below expectations, to a lack of resources, poor access authorized self-employed workers, but the Republican leadership Spain, Malaysia-Russia, Venezuela first two US-built: Nicaro (built in and agriculture’s contribution to to technology, and the brain drain members of new coops, private opposes it. and Russia began oil exploration 1947 and since closed), and Moa GDP was only 4%. Because of of technicians. Around 2013, the and usufruct farmers to open In 2013, Cuba imported $14.7 in the Gulf of Mexico in 2012, but (built in 1957 and modernized/ the failure of agrarian reform, centers were unified, leading to a bank accounts. The Central Bank billion in goods, partly subsidized these efforts were unsuccessful. In expanded by Sherritt). The Che Cuba now imports more than modest recovery. In the 1980s, Cuba is granting microloans, although and with credit, including $2 billion 2014, Cuba suspended exploration Guevara plant, built by the Soviets $2 billion in food that could be was a major medication producer, these are notoriously insufficient. in food to meet 70% of domestic due to previous failures and the with obsolete technology, has been grown domestically. but its success depended on raw Current banking infrastructure,

10 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 11 Feature Feature

accommodate passengers and cargo. II. STEPS AND CHALLENGES sanctions against that country; and Cuba needs to import construction TO FULL NORMALIZATION supported the Syrian government. machinery and new techniques Since D17, both countries have Normalization is further to improve its infrastructure, but reopened their respective embassies obstructed by several factors: current regulations prevent this. and signed a maritime protection In 1960, the government confiscated agreement. The US has taken a 1. Politico-ideological opposition most private homes, halted all series of positive steps on its own to on both sides. rentals, banned mortgages, stopped accelerate the normalization process Cuba’s leadership is not united: private home construction and and address economic issues that While some officials support the impeded the buying or selling benefit Cuba. opening, hardline opponents fear of dwellings. Public housing These include: a) Facilitating that the end of the embargo would construction was grossly insufficient American travel to the island; eliminate a handy scapegoat for to meet population growth and b) Lifting the cap on remittances, Cuba’s economic problems or that many dwellings decayed due to especially those for humanitarian the flood of tourists could unleash lack of maintenance, hurricane purposes; c) Allowing exports to political and cultural trouble. Some damage and building restrictions. and imports from Cuba’s non-state of Cuba’s actions actually provide The authorities approved private sector; d) Removing Cuba from the ammunition for US supporters of housing construction in the 1980s, list of state sponsors of terrorism; the embargo. According to the but a severe shortage of building e) Asking the US Congress to lift 2015 survey quoted before, 97% of materials resulted in a drastic fall the embargo; and f) Introducing Cubans believe that the normalization in production. Home construction a Freedom to Export to Cuba Act process is good for the country. A dropped from 111,373 units in in the US Senate that would backlash could occur if the process 2006 to 25,037 in 2014, and units eliminate all trade restrictions does not advance and people perceive per 1,000 inhabitants declined (the Republican leadership has their government as the culprit. Cienfuegos, Cuba - January 20, 2016: In cities and towns all over Cuba, crowds of people gather in parks and public squares to access public Internet. from 9.9 to 2.3. Officially, the blocked it). In the US, a bloc of eight Cuban- (TEKIN TURK DOGAN/iStock) housing deficit is 600,000 units On the Cuban side, the measures American members of Congress but my estimate is one million. have been mostly political and oppose Obama’s opening and the electronic equipment and personnel and advanced software, as well as equipment but require that the A 2011 law authorized home sales not always reciprocal: 53 political lifting of the embargo, including are inadequate to meet the growing access to the Internet by the population Cuban government relax controls on and purchases, releasing capital prisoners have been freed, and Republican Senators and presidential demand for services. Cuba's inclusion and companies. Cuba’s computer- communications and the Internet frozen for 55 years that can now Raúl Castro has praised Obama hopefuls Marco Rubio and Ted on the US Department of State’s use rate per 1,000 inhabitants is and permit foreign investment in be invested to start a microbusiness as a “decent” man, in contrast to Cruz, and Democrat Robert or change homes. Sales are only 11 previous US presidents. Cuba Menéndez. Opposition in the list of state sponsors of terrorism one of the lowest in Latin America telecommunications infrastructure. 3.6% of the housing stock due to continues to demand the return House of Representatives includes also has caused Cuba enormous and the Caribbean, at 5% (30% the population’s low purchasing of the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, difficulties in making transactions have access to the state-controlled 10. Infrastructure and housing. power (a cheap dwelling costs (this is probably negotiable but Mario Díaz Balart, Alex Money and through foreign banks; the US intranet); the cost per minute is the Cuba has not repaired or expanded $5,000, but the annual average is subordinated to a clause that Carlos Curbelo, as well as Democrat imposed billion-dollar sanctions on highest in the region and prohibitive its aqueduct and sewerage state-sector salary is $240, Cuba can’t rent the base to Russia Albio Sires. National surveys of the banks that failed to report relative to the average national salary. infrastructure in more than half a meaning that it takes 21 whole or China) and has cut imports of US population, however, consistently deposits and operations by the A recent effort has been made to century, except in Santiago. Leakages annual wages to buy a home), an US food and medicine. Castro reveal widespread support for Cuban government, making such provide computers to schools and, result in significant amounts of outdated property registry, lack of has also taken some antagonistic normalization of relations with transactions a significant risk. Cuba’s in March 2015, an agency opened water lost as well as a high incidence mortgage financing, and excessive actions: He failed to acknowledge Cuba and the lifting of the removal from the list of terrorist in Havana for public and officially of water-borne gastrointestinal bureaucracy (an application for a Obama’s positive overtures at the embargo. FIU’s own polls of Cuban countries in 2015 should alleviate approved access to the Internet and disease; potable water plants have home construction permit demands 2015 meeting of the UN Human Americans in South Florida have the situation. Wi-Fi, attracting a flow of eager been cut dramatically and water procedures at four state agencies Rights Commission, which similar findings; the latest, in youngsters. The undersea cable for human consumption must and takes an average of 132 days). overwhelmingly voted against the 2014, reported 68% support for 9. Telecommunications. between Cuba and Venezuela, which be boiled. Due to an insufficient New regulations seek to alleviate US embargo; unconditionally the reestablishment of diplomatic Cuba has well-trained computer could expand Internet access and number of collection trucks, garbage the problem by facilitating imports supported Venezuelan President relations with Cuba and 52% for professionals and Havana’s University speed, began functioning in 2013, accumulates in the streets, and of construction materials. In the Nicolás Maduro in his conflict lifting the embargo. Fifty-three of Information Sciences enjoys good but only for government use. Current no processing plants are available March 2015 survey cited above, with Obama prior to the VII percent of registered voters said equipment and Internet connections. US regulations aim to improve this to turn waste into energy. Roads 41% of the respondents said the Summit of the Americas in 2015; they would support a candidate The lack of resources, however, situation by promoting the export of and bridges are in bad condition US product or service they most strengthened ties with North Korea in favor of restoring relations. prevents the acquisition of equipment computers and telecommunication and transport is inadequate to desired was housing. and asked the UN to eliminate

12 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 13 Paladares or private, small, family-run restaurants are now common across Cuba. Santa Clara's restaurant Feature El Alba cooks traditional Cuban food exclusively with Feature charcoal. (ROBERTO MACHADO NOA/LIGHT ROCKET/AFP/Getty Images)

to the Helms-Burton Act, the flow, Cuba will have to improve 2. Cuba’s economic capacity. Cuban Democracy Act prohibits the quality of its hotel infrastructure, Cuba has a low capacity to sustain sales to Cuba by subsidiaries of services and amenities, as well as trade with the US without subsidies US corporations abroad, and the reduce the cost of renting a car. and substantial credit. Some Reform of Sanctions on Trade and Cubana de Aviación will have to crucial facts: Exports Act bans travel to Cuba by upgrade equipment before it can • The US economy is 226 times US tourists. The major economic obtain permission to land at larger than Cuba’s; at 11 million, obstacle that Cuba faces is not the US airports. Cuba’s population is comparable embargo. The island maintains trade to Ohio’s, but Cuba’s per capita with and investment from many 5. Trade and services. income is 10% that of the countries in the world. The embargo Current regulations ban Cuban US state. does have a range of negative exports of sugar, tobacco, rum, • Cuba’s economic growth effects, including cumbersome nickel, antique cars, live animals in 2009–2014 averaged 2% foreign banking transactions, more and animal products, vegetables, annually—in 2014 it was 1.1%, expensive US goods bought from prepared food, chemicals, vessels, ranked thirty-first among the 35 third countries and higher cargo wool and cotton. Most of these countries of Latin America and costs; however, Cuba’s inefficient goods are only produced by the the Caribbean. economic system and incapacity to state. Imports of US food declined • Gross domestic investment was generate exports to pay for imports 44% in 2008–2015 for several 8.9% of GDP in 2013, compared are the fundamental hindrance. reasons. First, the US does not to 26% in 1989 (prior to the Recent reforms have been positive provide credit to Cuba, shifting “Special Period”) and 23% in the but slow, impeded by excessive trade to Argentina, Brazil and Spain, rest of Latin America. regulations, controls, taxes and which do. Second, a stronger dollar • Agricultural growth averaged disincentives; so far, they have has made US goods less competitive, 1% in 2010–2013. failed to produce tangible economic and third, US tariffs are high outside • The deficit in the trade balance effects. Only the US Congress can of trade associations. In the short of goods in 2013 was $9.4 lift the embargo, and to date it has run, Cuba will have a significant billion, the second biggest such ignored Obama’s request that it trade deficit with the United States deficit in Cuban history. take this step. If the embargo were due to the little it has to export, a • The value of exports of goods lifted, Cuba would receive many situation that could threaten many has steadily declined since 2011, more US tourists, and probably Cuban enterprises. In addition, when it was already 12% below credit, but it would have to honor Cuba will have to compete with 1985 levels. its commitments or credit would Latin American exporters that • Cuba depends on Venezuela vanish. Trade and investment have a long relationship with the for about one-fourth of its GDP, with the US would help diversify US and preferential treatment a dangerous figure because trade and ease the island’s heavy through bilateral and multilateral of Venezuela’s dire economic dependence on Venezuela. agreements. To the best of my situation (200% inflation, a knowledge, the Cuban government projected 10% drop in GDP in 4. Tourism. has not yet authorized any US 2015, and the worst economic Until recently, most US travelers trade with the non-state sector. performance in the region). to Cuba had to go in groups with Particularly sensitive are imports an itinerary and a guide. Tourism of communication and electronic Under these circumstances, is not allowed, so the itinerary equipment. If trade is eventually one would expect Cuba to do its cannot mix educational or religious authorized, it will probably be part to push for normalization activities with a day at the beach. subjected to restrictions and without yielding its sovereignty. Travel agencies and airlines cannot high taxes. sell tourist packages; violators risk Cuba is a large exporter of 3. US embargo. being fined. Individuals attending professional services, including Since 1968 I have opposed the professional meetings or conducting physicians, nurses and teachers. This US embargo on Cuba based on research must have the credentials sector contributes about $5 billion arguments similar to those used for these activities. To attract return to the economy annually and is the by Obama on D17. In addition visitors after the initial “discovery” leading source of hard currency.

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Main buyers are Venezuela and in case of expropriation. allowed foreign investors to partner value of claims to a portion of their a narrow window of opportunity and fears that reform will unleash Brazil. Revenue from such services The law also maintains some with cooperatives but not the self- nominal value, Cuba waiving or remains to reach major agreements, an unstoppable trend toward a compensates for Cuba’s deficit in incongruous rules. It does not employed, who account for 64% of substantially lowering its claims, especially as no one can predict market economy and political the trade of goods. Buying countries permit free hiring of labor or non-state activities. The portfolio set and a debt-for-investment tradeoff the attitude of the next president trouble that could destabilize the subsidize salaries, do not scrutinize transfer of property. Foreign 25 priorities for foreign investment, subordinated to the lifting of the toward normalization. Raúl Castro regime. And yet, the alternative training and credentials, and face no investors cannot directly hire or including 36 projects in hightech, embargo. Cuba also demands an has announced his retirement in is worse, particularly if Venezuela language barriers. Shifting part dismiss their employees, but must manufacturing and business end to broadcasts by Radio and February 2018; if the next person in should collapse. Cuba should move of those professionals to the US instead go through a state agency. oriented to export in the ZEDM; TV Martí; calls for rescinding the the White House is not as amenable forward with structural reforms won’t be easy. Investors disburse salaries in hard energy; and construction of two Cuban Adjustment Act, which as Obama, there won’t be a chance and rapprochement with the US. currency to the government, which cement plants and 12 new hotels. grants asylum to Cuban émigrés for Cuba’s leader to settle with Negotiations cannot succeed if both 6. Investment. in turn pays a fraction in pesos A new version of the portfolio, who touch US soil; and rejects the US. Finally, the Cuban people parties do not give up a little, and an At less than half the Latin American to workers (the exchange rate is released in November 2015, identifies any changes to the political system are overwhelmingly in favor of unyielding attitude by one partner average, Cuba’s domestic investment 24 pesos to one US dollar) and 326 investment areas and specific or discussions on human and normalization and, if it fails and the could derail the entire process. is low and restricts economic pockets the difference. Foreign priorities: access to advanced political rights. leadership is perceived as the culprit, growth, leading several Cuban investments may be expropriated technology, substitution of food a backlash is possible. The key Carmelo Mesa-Lago is economists to argue for the need for reasons of public utility or social imports, expansion of exports, III. GREAT EXPECTATIONS question, therefore, is: Why hasn’t Distinguished Service Professor for foreign investment in all sectors. interest, and in several cases conflict tourism, energy, mining, industrial AND POOR SHORT-TERM Cuba been more eager for an opening? Emeritus of Economics and Latin Officially, Cuba requires between $2 resolution has been left to local infrastructure and biotechnology. ECONOMIC OUTCOMES It is understandable that Cuba American Studies at the University and $2.5 billion annually to jump- courts instead of the International In March 2015, 120 investment One year is not enough to assess wants to keep links with its allies in of Pittsburgh. start the economy into reasonable Court of Arbitration. A survey of projects from China, South Korea, the outcome of normalization but, Latin America, Russia and China growth. To achieve this, the country businessmen in 2015 pinpointed Western Europe, Japan, and as the previous analysis shows, and avoid giving the impression that implemented a new law on foreign five factors that restrict freedom Vietnam (including Toyota and the initial great expectations for it has capitulated to the US. But investment in June 2014. The new to invest in Cuba: 63% identified Hyundai) had been submitted a rapid and fruitful economic some actions appear unwarranted, law replaces regulations enacted in bureaucracy, 50% excessive to Cuba, but no contracts had rapprochement were not founded such as the outspoken declarations 1995; among other things, it: regulations, 43% legal procedures been signed. The number of such on solid knowledge of the situation’s of support for North Korea and a) Extends foreign investment to and guarantees, 39% state enterprise projects grew by 757% from complexity and extant barriers. Syria. Public repetition of demands all sectors except health, education inefficiency, and 34% financial risks. D17 to April 2015, but as of Despite Obama’s positive and on the US could be explained as and the army; b) Exempts taxes The latter concern was heightened in November only eight agreements daring steps, the embargo is still bargaining chips but actually are on personal income, the labor September 2014, three months after had been subscribed. a formidable obstacle. The new counterproductive; they fail to force, customs for certain imports, the investment law came into force, US regulations try to support the move the process forward and profits for eight years, and sales tax when Canadian Cy Tokmakjian - 7. US and Cuban claims. non-state sector on the island with would be more appropriate for for a year; c) Permits the opening the biggest investor in Cuba - was Claims by US citizens for more remittances and trade, as well the negotiation table. of accounts in freely convertible sentenced to 15 years in prison for property confiscated by the Cuban as promote wider communications Presidents Ford, Carter and currency at foreign banks; corruption and his investments were government total $7 billion, in through electronic exports, the Clinton started negotiations with d) Allows direct imports and exports confiscated. Five months later he addition to $12 billion in claims Internet and “people-to-people” Cuba under Fidel Castro, only to (the previous law did as well, but was deported. by Cuban Americans. Cuba travel. Havana has not given the have them aborted by actions that in practice this did not occur); A magnet for foreign investment recognizes US citizens’ claims but green light, continuing to pursue torpedoed the process. I have shown e) Limits the period to authorize is the Special Development Zone rejects those of Cuban émigrés. In its goal of state free trade with elsewhere that Fidel did not want a or deny investments to 45 or 60 of Mariel (ZEDM), established in turn, Cuba claims $180 billion in and investment from the US. thaw with the US because it would days (no limit existed before, and 2013. It offers better incentives than reparation for damages inflicted by Raúl Castro initially welcomed mean losing key tools of the regime: the process often took years); f) the 2014 investment law, including the US embargo; the government the opening but has followed up the enemy and the embargo. Raúl Authorizes enterprises with 100% longer tax exemptions on profits and provides an annual estimate of these with antagonistic gestures that give is a pragmatist; he offered multiple shares of foreign capital (this was sales, and a special labor regime that damages, but many categories are ammunition to active supporters of times to meet Obama and finally also in the previous law but the allows agreements between foreign questionable, including the loss of the embargo in the US. His attitude reached an agreement with him state had 51% of shares except for investors and the state agency trade opportunities. A settlement is also baffling in view of the on D17. 4% of total foreign investment); on issues including wages. A 2014 on mutual claims would probably precarious economic conditions in The enigma of Raúl’s attitude on g) Allows investments by “legal decree stipulates that workers have to precede the lifting of the Venezuela, which contributes one- normalization echoes his puzzling persons” residing in Cuba as well as, receive 80% of the agreed wage, embargo. Both sides could decide to quarter of Cuba’s GDP, and the lack behavior on structural reform, which apparently, Cubans residing abroad at a preferential exchange rate. cancel their claims, but in that case of other powerful nations willing has been slow, contradictory, and (although the latter is not clear); In 2014, a portfolio of opportunities the US would have to compensate and able to replace Venezuela in a without tangible economic effects. and h) Offers guarantees to foreign for foreign investment listed 246 the losses of its citizens. Other worst-case scenario. With Obama’s Plausible explanations include the investors, including compensation projects worth $8.7 million. It alternatives include reducing the second term drawing to an end, divisions within the leadership

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New Policy, Old Politics: Change and Changelessness in US-Cuba Relations by Louis A. Pérez, Jr.

momentous occasion between the United States and and reorganize the character of indeed: August 14, Cuba.” Most immediately, the Cuban society; that is, to do what 2015, the raising of the embargo remains in place. Radio the United States has always done: American flag to and TV Martí continue broadcasting. insert itself into Cuban internal inaugurate the new The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act affairs to shape the course of Cuban US embassy in Havana, something remains unchanged. And, lastly, the developments. “We would hope to ofA a mirror image of the raising of United States retains control of the bring about change in the regime,” the Cuban flag on May 20, 1902 Guantánamo Naval Station, built on Assistant Secretary of State Roberta to inaugurate the new republic. It territory seized in 1901. Jacobson acknowledged. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) watches as Marines raise the American flag at the reopening of the US Embassy on August 14, 2015 in Havana, Cuba. was very difficult not to be swept up However formidable these For a brief moment on July 20, Kerry’s visit was the first by a US secretary of state since 1945 and a symbolic act after the two former Cold War enemies reestablished diplomatic relations in the exhilaration of the moment, obstacles may appear to be, they are 2015—the date that the United in July. (CHIP SOMODEVILLA/AFP/Getty Images) and certainly not the time to allow not insurmountable. Each could be States and Cuba restored diplomatic objective reality mar a subjective remedied and resolved through the relations and reopened embassies way that self-righteous certainty between Presidents Obama and Cuba engages the United States mood: Just as May 20, 1902 was not exertion of political will and the in each other’s capitals—Secretary presumes selfless moral purpose— Castro at the United Nations, to defend historic claims to national the day to dwell on a new republic exercise of good faith. The most of State John Kerry seemed to “the people of Cuba would be best the US press secretary related sovereignty and self-determination. without the capacity to exercise troublesome obstacles to “normal have subscribed to the paradigm served”—Secretary Kerry’s thinly that Obama had “reaffirmed our The United States renews relations national sovereignty and self- relations” are not found in the of Cuban sovereignty and self- veiled rebuke to Cuba set the US commitment to seeing that the with Cuba to “bring about change determination, August 14, 2015 was present, but in the past, over 200 determination. “Cuba’s future is for purpose in relief. Cuban government do a better job in the regime.” These two versions not the time to call attention to a years of history during which the Cubans to shape,” Kerry declared. The “license” of power is perhaps of not just respecting, but actually of “normal relations” will be new US policy pursuing old politics. presumption of entitlement has “Responsibility for the nature impossible to revoke; it informs proactively protecting the basic difficult to reconcile and portend The euphoria greeting the developed into the default template and quality of governance and the very history from which the human rights of the Cuban people.” the continuation of adversarial US-Cuba rapprochement was from which US policy toward Cuba accountability rests, as it should, not powerful obtain moral validation, No doubt an exhortation from tensions. Part of the problem is as widespread as it was widely is fashioned. with any outside entity; but solely from which the warrant of power Castro that the US government “do that no usable models exist for shared. “Historic diplomatic Cuba and the United States within the citizens of this country.” assumes such utter commonplace a better job” of protecting the lives “normal relations” between the US rapprochement,” exulted The New moved toward rapprochement Sadly, Kerry’s statement did not normality as to take on the of African-American men from the and Cuba. For nearly 200 years, York Times, promising to lead to within two different paradigms of end there. “But,” he continued, appearance of the natural order of police would not have been received “normal” has meant a presumption “full normalization of relations.” “normal relations.” The Cubans “the leaders in Havana—and the things, hardly noticed at all except as calmly in US political circles. of US authority to impose its will The restoration of diplomatic ties, engaged the process of normalization Cuban people—should know a confirmation that all is right with US policy has been conditioned on Cuba. The historic model of pronounced the Los Angeles Times, within an explicit protocol of that the United States will always the world. The sight of Assistant by 200 years of history during “normal relations” casts the United represented a major advance in mutual respect; in the words of remain a champion of democratic Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson which the Americans have presumed States in the role of the arbiter of “normalizing relations between the Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, principles and reforms… We remain in Havana in January 2015 engaged proprietary authority to manage Cuban destiny—always in the name US and Cuba.” Secretary of State “on the basis of respect and equality, convinced the people of Cuba in public sympathetic interaction Cuban internal affairs, shape of what “best serves” the interests of John Kerry heralded the resumption without any prejudice to the would be best served by genuine with Cuban dissidents could not outcomes and prescribe what “best the Cuban people. Plus ça change… of diplomatic ties as a step closer independence and sovereignty of democracy, where people are free but give pause. One could only serves” the interests of the Cuban “to restoring fully normal relations Cuba, and without any interference to choose their leaders, express imagine the howls of indignation people. Informing this stance is the Louis A. Pérez, Jr., is J. Carlyle between the United States and Cuba.” in our internal affairs.” The their ideas, practice their faith… in the United States if an official moral conviction that the United Sitterson Professor of History and These were promising months of Americans unabashedly pursued where institutions are answerable Cuban delegation arranged a public States has the right—indeed, the Director of the Institute for the Study reconciliation after dismal years of “normal relations” as a matter of to those they serve; and where civil meeting with representatives of duty—to guide the affairs of Cubans of the Americas at the University of rancor, to be sure. But it is also true instrumental purpose, as a means society is independent and allowed Occupy Wall Street. A similar for their own best interests and that North Carolina at Chapel Hill. that formidable obstacles remain in to change Cuba, restructure the to flourish.” In tone and tenor, in moment came in September 2015, the Cubans have the obligation to the way of “fully normal relations economy, reform its political system hubris and chutzpah, in the breezy when, in summarizing the exchange accede to US guidance.

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Barack Obama, toward the end of his second term and with a polarized Diplomatic Normality Congress controlled by a Republican majority. This ideological polarity motivated America’s first African- and Its Enemies American president to rely more on executive orders to reshape by Rafael Rojas US domestic and international policy, as evidenced by such examples as the Affordable Care ne of the most Freud, Morgenthau argued that discourses, practices and even Act, immigration, the nuclear striking aspects of the reality of international relations temperaments of the deal with Iran, estrangement from the negotiation was hiding behind the façade of communities involved. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government process initiated by ideology. Morgenthau, who closely Despite the differences and in Israel and, of course, the the governments observed the conflict between the asymmetries between the two nations, restoration of relations with Cuba. of the United States and Cuba in United States and Cuba, especially their governments have been able Obama has pinned his hopes on Oearly 2015 has been its explicit during the Bay of Pigs invasion and to understand each other, restore these initiatives as his legacy and Jorge Mañach, writer, scholar and statesman. (SERGE BALKIN/CONDE NAST/AFP/Getty Images) adherence to the realistic canon the Missile Crisis, later wrote that relations and outline a protocol for for his party’s chances for keeping of contemporary international John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro diplomatic normalization. While control of the White House in the 2016 presidential elections. Communism. At the University of and resentment on the other.” The relations. Both governments, since the had acted rationally according much remains to be done to satisfy Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, hosted function of borders in this context concurrent statements by Barack to their respective interests. The the central demands of each party, Despite the rational motives by Chancellor Jaime Benítez, is limited to “preserving as much as Obama and Raúl Castro on old master’s observation angered the protocol itself is a major step in of each actor, however, neither Mañach delivered a series of lectures possible the respective integrities, December 17, 2014, agreed that politicians and intellectuals involved signaling the willingness to negotiate is univocal and both are subject on the Caribbean as a border enclosing the two human groups in they would negotiate without in the ideological battles of the Cold of two actors at odds for too long. to pressures and interests from between the two Americas that later their corresponding places” (Teoría de renouncing divergent principles that War. One of his critics was Maurice This progress is even more their immediate environment and geopolitical partners. At least three appeared under the title Teoría de la la frontera, p. 43). put national interests above ideology. Halperin, a former agent of the notable when one considers that frontera (1970), a posthumous and The teams led by Vice Minister Soviet NKVD and the American the Cuban government is headed pockets of resistance oppose the Mañach cited the ideas of Argentine reestablishment of relations between unfinished work prefaced by Concha economist Raúl Prebisch, the founder Josefina Vidal and Assistant Secretary OSS (the forerunner of the CIA), by a historic leader of the 1959 Meléndez. In these talks, Mañach Roberta Jacobson respected that who had advised Fidel Castro Revolution and one of the main the United States and Cuba: (1) of ECLAC, in suggesting that increased Congressional Republicans, especially portrayed many of the protagonists economic activity was the key to basic agreement, whose goal was a and Che Guevara in Cuba in the architects of the Communist in the conflict between the United theoretical consensus between two mid-sixties. After breaking with political and legal system that has Cuban-American senators and leveling the border: “studying our representatives of both parties, who States and Cuba as carriers of an idea natural resources, adopting modern states with differing ideologies. the Cuban government, Halperin characterized the island for the of the border as an edge or limit, The realist school of international accused Morgenthau of naivety in his past 55 years. This government are reluctant to consider constructive techniques and saving habits, ties with left-leaning Latin American boundary or partition, when, he integrating markets, implementing theory, starting with Hans Morgenthau analysis, because it underestimated brokered Cuba’s inscription within suggested, it could best be thought and his classic Politics among Nations the potential irrationality of an actor the Soviet bloc, radically changing and Caribbean governments; (2) the internal systems of distribution segment of the Cuban government of as a “friction surface.” and diversification of agricultural (1948) and rearticulated in the last such as Fidel Castro. the hemispheric system and making Mañach was keenly aware of the decades of the twentieth century Like all conflicts inherited from the island the target not only of that is most resistant to change and property, and industrializing. asymmetry between the United in the works of Robert Keohane the Cold War, the dispute between hostile policies of all kinds, but skeptical of the reforms Raúl Castro Above all, imposing on ourselves States and its Caribbean neighbors. and Joseph Nye, was a doctrinal the United States and Cuba has also the closest approximation to has introduced over the past three healthy forms of democratic political The Caribbean islands, in his view, current essentially linked to the an ideological dimension that is a nuclear holocaust in the West so years; and (3) some currents of the and social discipline.” context of the Cold War. A central impossible to hide. One only has far. The state that was built after the Latin American left, especially those represented an “uneven border.” Today’s analysts may not use the motivation of Morgenthau, a to take a quick look at the domestic Revolution has produced a foreign identifying with the Bolivarian “When a village is underdeveloped, same terminology as Mañach, but German Jewish intellectual and and international policies of the policy unprecedented in its global Revolution, which are not eager as is now said, in the vicinity of a his idea of the border as a “friction University of Chicago professor two actors in the confrontation activism among any Latin American to see an understanding between powerful nation, or equipped with surface” remains a valuable lens for during World War II, was to explain to appreciate their contradictory or Caribbean country, and Cuba was Washington and Havana. different cultural elements..., the viewing the challenge of diplomatic relations between states through global and regional strategies and the only socialist state within the To understand these tensions, it border necessarily implies something normalization between the United what he called “interest defined profiles. Ideology cannot be excluded Soviet bloc to openly reject the fall is useful to look back to the work insecure and precarious,” Mañach States and Cuba. in terms of power” rather than from the analysis of this conflict: of the Berlin wall, the breakdown of Cuban philosopher and essayist noted. When one abandons the the ideological confrontation that Not only do both states assign it a of the USSR and the transition to Jorge Mañach, who was exiled to idea of the border as a “friction Rafael Rojas is a Research Professor of monopolized the public sphere central role within their policies but democracy in Eastern Europe. Puerto Rico in the summer of 1960 surface,” he explained, countries History at the Center for Economic during the Cold War. Echoing also, after more than half a century, On the US side, in contrast, the following his disenchantment with “lose the ability to communicate, Research and Teaching (CIDE) in Machiavelli and Marx, Weber and their dispute has molded the values, negotiations were led by President the Cuban Revolution’s turn toward giving rise to arrogance on one hand Mexico City.

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US-Cuba Relations: than 150 members of peaceful critical opponents of normalization control of the country’s National dissent movements. Cuban- and has taken the opportunity to Assembly, decides to cut back on American congresswoman Ileana express his views in Washington oil subsidies to Cuba, the island Ros-Lehtinen—one of the leading at Congressional hearings. The could lose the equivalent of a quarter Waiting for Real Change critics of the United States’ new diplomatic turn taken by the United of its economy and 35% of its by Nora Gámez Torres Cuba policy—took the opportunity States has created a clear distinction foreign trade, economist Carmelo to reproach President Obama that within the Cuban opposition Mesa-Lago has warned. This could “countless economic and political between those who support the new accelerate the pace of reforms and incentives have not stopped these US policy and those who do not. US rapprochement. authoritarian people from clinging Obama raised the stakes in year after D17, resumption of commercial flights to most US citizens remain in effect. to power,” a reference to “the Castro Who Wins the Game? December 2015 when he said that President Barack the island, but acknowledged that Nevertheless, as James Williams, brothers and their henchmen.” Cuba If this were a game of chess, the he was “very interested” in visiting Obama explained the the negotiations will take months. a lobbyist in favor of lifting the remains a country of great contrasts Cuban government could be said Cuba in 2016, but only if the theory behind the The talks have stalled over million- embargo, notes, “while there are and no miraculous announcement to hold an advantageous position. “conditions are right.” Obama added change in US policy dollar claims in US courts to still many challenges in relation to will change the island’s political It has secured the release of three that he would like to see progress in toward Cuba, which had remained compensate victims of the Cuban US policy toward Cuba, we’ve reality overnight. Obama himself of its intelligence agents, who were achieving “freedom and possibilities almostA untouched for half a century. government’s actions. An agreement made more progress in one year foresaw this problem from the start, received back home as heroes. for ordinary Cubans” and asked to “Our original theory… was not that on compensation, rugged and than in decades.” and reiterated in December 2015 The United States has removed meet with dissidents and activists, we were going to see immediate difficult though it may be, will be a Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno that he will continue to “press” Cuba from its list of state sponsors conditions sure to displease the changes or loosening of the control vital part of ensuring a real possibility Rodríguez has criticized Obama’s to improve the human rights of terrorism, issued a series of island’s government. Stronger of the Castro regime, but rather that for US companies to invest and measures as “very limited,” and situation on the island. Raúl Castro, regulations to stimulate trade and demand for human rights could over time you’d lay the predicates operate normally in Cuba. the government has made whom Obama described not as travel to Cuba, and expressed a content the many Cuban Americans for substantial transformation,” the The island’s government has ending an embargo a condition an “ideologue” but a “pragmatist,” willingness to continue negotiations who still mistrust the turn in US president said in an interview with yet to respond to most of the of “normalization.” Even in this although one “very committed to with Havana on multiple issues. policy toward Cuba, mostly because Yahoo News. incentives provided by the United country, legal experts such as Stephen the existing regime,” promised early Cuba has also drawn the attention of the scarce political results it has The results, however, haven’t kept States. The Obama administration Propst point out that the Obama on to the Cuban National Assembly of the business community. achieved in this area and respect for up with the enthusiasm generated has promulgated new regulations administration could further expand that, during negotiations with the But an early advantage doesn’t civil liberties. Obama only has until by the event, especially among US authorizing US institutions and the categories of allowed travel United States, he would require mean a solid position on the board. the end of 2016 to prove that his entrepreneurs. Apart from Airbnb companies to have a “physical to Cuba and facilitate financial “respect” for the political system The Obama administration has policy is not just a promise but rather and telephone companies such as presence” in the country, open bank transactions, among other measures established since 1959. a few months to make its legacy a risky bet with potential benefits Sprint, few have benefitted from accounts and hire Cuban employees. intended to relax the sanctions. In sum, 2015 was a year with “irreversible” and will demand more both for Cuba and the US. the opening. Cuba’s removal from In theory, US companies could Obama might be inclined to do “positive and negative results” for than promises and meetings every the US list of state sponsors of also begin exporting materials and so if, as he told Yahoo News, the the Cuban opposition, human three months. The enthusiasm of Nora Gámez Torres has a PhD in terrorism and the reappearance of supplies to self-employed Cubans. Cuban government accelerated its rights activist Antonio Rodiles entrepreneurs could likewise fade sociology and is a journalist at El embassies in the capitals of both To date, however, the Cuban own reforms. At the same time, he acknowledges. After freeing around unless Cuba enacts the legal reforms Nuevo Herald. countries are the results with the government has not even opened a seems to be taking into account 50 political prisoners earlier in 2015, necessary to guarantee property and most symbolic and political weight wholesale market for small business criticism from Cuban exiles and the Cuban regime continued to investments, unify its currency and so far. Cuba has made political owners and continues to monopolize members of Congress—above all, arrest opponents on a large scale. allow the direct hiring of employees, hay out of its removal from the all commercial activity. Cuban American senators and (As of November 2015, the Cuban key concerns of the business terrorism blacklist, but the United For many US entrepreneurs eager representatives—that his policy Commission for Human Rights and delegations that visited the island in States did not attain a comparable to invest, the slow reaction of the offers an “economic lifeline” to the National Reconciliation reported 2015. It could decide to take these achievement in 2015. According to a island’s government seems puzzling. island’s government. The president 7,686 arrests). At the same time, steps, but some measures require State Department official I spoke to Even one of Fidel Castro’s own has promised to be “selective” and however, dissidents have managed modifying Cuba’s Constitution. via teleconference, direct mail, civil children, Alex Castro Soto del Valle, “cautious” in exercising his executive to give visibility to their demands Any transcendental policy change aviation, environmental protection, has complained that the process of authority to promote economic through social media campaigns such would have to be approved by the and the fight against drug trafficking change in Cuba is "too slow" because change to avoid benefiting the as #TodosMarchamos (advocating Communist Party, during its 7th are all subjects on which agreements of bureaucracy, the objections of “cronies of the regime.” for the freedom of all political Congress in April 2016. have already been achieved or could a “conservative” wing in the prisoners), #Cubadecide (calling The end of 2015, with the be achieved soon. government, and corruption. The Island’s Political Climate for a plebiscite), or the hundreds of devastating defeat suffered by A day before the first anniversary On the US side, despite efforts On December 10, 2015, videos the Patriotic Union of Cuba Chavism in Venezuela, brought of D17, the two countries announced to lobby Congress, the embargo International Human Rights Day, (UNPACU) posts on YouTube. great uncertainty to Cuba. If the an understanding aimed at the and the travel ban to Cuba for the Cuban authorities arrested more Rodiles has been one of the most Venezuelan opposition, which took

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entrepreneurs. According to the What is the potential role of US-Cuba relations on Cuban Havana Consulting Group in Miami, Cuban-American remittances in the Americans depends largely on their Cubans living outside the island sent island’s economy? In 2015, about a attitudes toward the restoration $3.13 billion in total remittances to third of Cubans polled by Bendixen of official ties between the two their relatives back home in 2014. and Amandi on the island said countries. Several polls conducted Forty-eight percent of all Cuban they received money from relatives after December 17, 2014 have Americans interviewed in the 2014 and friends living abroad. Most documented that many, if not FIU Cuba Poll sent money to Cuba. of the money Cuban Americans most, Cuban Americans supported According to Katrin Hansing and send is spent on daily household reestablishing diplomatic relations Manuel Orozco, about half (47%) subsistence needs in Cuba, such as with Cuba. For instance, in a Miami sent money to Cuba by conventional food, medicine and housing repairs. Herald poll published on December methods (i.e., wire transfers through Some remittance recipients are able 19, 2014, 44% of respondents Western Union), while the other to save a portion of the money and favored normalization, while 48% half (50%) used informal means purchase assets such as cell phones, opposed it (with a 4.1% margin (i.e., family members or mulas— cars, machinery and computers. In of error). In a national US poll unlicensed remittance carriers— Bendixen and Amandi’s poll, 11% conducted by Bendixen and Amandi traveling back home). of respondents said they invested in March 2015, 51% of Cuban Cuban-American contributions to their remittances in productive Americans favored normalizing Cuba’s economy are not restricted activities, including setting up and relations with Cuba. Support for to remittances. Cuban émigrés also sustaining small private businesses reestablishing diplomatic ties was finance nearly 70% of Cuba’s cell such as beauty parlors, cafeterias even higher outside of Florida: Ramón Cruz, who left Cuba three years ago, visits a Check Cashing USA store in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, Florida to send a $300 phone market, which amounted to and cocotaxis. Many of the most 69%. In December 2015, another wire transfer via Western Union to his mother who still lives on the island. (JOE RAEDLE/AFP/Getty Images) more than three million phones in successful businesses in Cuba today Bendixen and Amandi poll found 2015. Cuban Americans make more (including several paladares) were that 56% of Cuban Americans than 50 million telephone calls per established with dollars sent by agreed with President Obama’s year to Cuba, and Cubans living relatives living overseas. The money decision to normalize relations abroad send millions of dollars in is often used to purchase goods, with Cuba. The Cuban-American packages, including food, clothes, repair and remodel facilities, and The 2014 FIU Cuba Poll, medicine and other assets. Nearly meet payroll demands. A 2011 study conducted in May 2014, found that half a million Cuban Americans by Orozco and Hansing found that two-thirds of the Cuban-American Community after D17 traveled to Cuba in 2013. They remittances financed 27% of the day- population in Miami Dade County took with them merchandise worth to-day operations of small businesses favored diplomatic ties with the by Jorge Duany millions of dollars, such as electrical in Cuba. island. Several other significant appliances, spare parts, and other More broadly, the massive transfer findings also emerged: items used to develop and maintain of money from Cubans in the • Over time, more and more he reestablishment (self-employment). In May 2015, According to a 2014 survey by businesses on the island. When United States has a multiplying Cuban Americans in Miami have of diplomatic ties the Cuban government reported Maybell Padilla Pérez, one-third Cuban Americans travel to Cuba, effect on the Cuban economy by supported renewing diplomatic ties between the United 504,613 self-employed workers, or of the startup capital for these they often stay in casas particulares, bolstering consumer demand, with Cuba—from 20% in 1991 to States and Cuba has approximately 10% of the island’s businesses originates in Cuban- eat in paladares, and purchase other particularly in agriculture, retail 68% in 2014. raised numerous labor force. Most of these workers American remittances, technically goods and services produced by self- trade, communications, construction • Fifty-seven percent of registered opportunities and challenges for were employed in three service defined as transfers of money by employed workers (cuentapropistas). and, more recently, real estate. voters would likely vote for a Tboth countries, including US citizens sectors linked to the tourist industry: migrants from the United States In short, Cuban Americans are Remittances are now the second candidate in favor of replacing the of Cuban origin, particularly those paladares (small family restaurants), to family members on the island. currently making a substantial or third source of foreign currency embargo with a policy of increased residing in South Florida. Here I will casas particulares (bed-and-breakfast Significant informal “investment” contribution to the development on the island, after the export of support for independent assess some of the main economic rentals to foreigners), and private (through remittances) is already of small private businesses in professional services and tourism. business owners. repercussions of the changes in US- taxis, including bicitaxis, cocotaxis taking place in Cuba, but is not Cuba and, therefore, to improved They are part of a broad-based • Fifty-five percent of the Cuba relations for Cuban Americans. and almendrones, as Cubans call yet officially recognized by either living conditions for the island’s transnational economy that operates interviewees would invest in Let me begin with some brief vintage American cars. Other the Cuban or US governments. population. Recent changes in US- (largely informally) between Cuba Cuban independent enterprises. background on the recent emergence authorized private businesses At present, small-scale Cuban Cuba relations are likely to expand and Florida, including retail trade, • Although split almost evenly of a private, or non-state, sector of include beauty and barber shops, businesses, operated by family opportunities for Cuban-American telecommunications, real estate and on the question of the embargo, Cuba’s economy, usually referred car repair, construction, and repair owners, are the main target for remittances, travel, communication many kinds of services. most Cuban Americans favor to as trabajo por cuenta propia of electrical appliances. “investment” by Cuban-American and investment in Cuba. The potential impact of improved unrestricted travel, remittances,

24 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 25 ReportsÑoooo Qué Barato! is a discount store in Hialeah, Florida and popular shopping Reports destination for Miami Cubans who buy inexpensive items to send to family and friends on the island. Para Cuba Lo Tenemos Todo is their tagline. (JUAN MONINO/iStock)

the sale of food and medicine, and finance and even education. other kinds of trade with Cuba. Nevertheless, numerous legal and What legal and policy measures policy measures still restrict the might promote the participation of flow of people, capital, merchandise, Cuban-American businesses in the information and technology between emerging private sector of the Cuban Cuba and the United States. economy? An important first step is To sum up, Cuban Americans for the Cuban government to clarify will probably be one of the key the legal rights and obligations of social actors in the reconstruction Cubans living abroad. The latest of the Cuban economy after the legislation on foreign investment restoration of diplomatic relations in Cuba does not specifically between Cuba and the United prohibit Cubans living abroad States. They are already sending from investing in the island (and large sums of money, purchasing some Cuban officials have publicly goods, transferring technology and expressed that they would welcome consuming services in the private such an investment), but it remains sector of the Cuban economy. The ambiguous on the issue. Cuba must role of Cuban-American remittances also provide stronger legal guarantees could be even more significant for “foreign” investors (including in the near future as a source of Cuban-American entrepreneurs). funding for independent business Travel, visa and remittance growth on the island. In several regulations should be more flexible public opinion polls, most Cuban and less expensive. Cuba’s official Americans have expressed strong recognition of dual citizenship for support for the reestablishment Cuban Americans would probably of US-Cuba diplomatic ties and facilitate their participation in the expansion of the private sector the Cuban economy. In addition, on the island. Maximizing the experts have recommended that the potential contribution of Cuban government authorize all economic Americans to the Cuban economy, activities—including professional however, will require substantial services—in the self-employed changes to the laws and regulations sector, and allow more employees established by both the Cuban and per business. In the political realm, US governments, especially the greater tolerance for diversity lifting of remaining trade, investment of opinion and respect for human and travel sanctions. Perhaps then, rights in Cuba would certainly economic exchanges between Cubans encourage Cuban-American living on and off the island will investment in the island. become smoother and achieve their On the US side, lifting the full potential. embargo of Cuba will be necessary for a full normalization of US-Cuba Jorge Duany is Director of the Cuban trade relations. This is unlikely to Research Institute and Professor of occur before 2017, with Republicans Anthropology in the Department of in control of Congress. In the Global and Sociocultural Studies at meantime, recent US amendments Florida International University. to regulations governing trade with Cuba have facilitated the entrance of US (including Cuban- American) businesses to the Cuban market, especially in agriculture, transportation, telecommunications,

26 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 27 Reports Reports

Cuba’s Communist State Is Now a Client of Its Capitalist Entrepreneurs by Tim Padgett

March 2016. They sport Obama’s and so did the money that poured in. face between Cuban and US flags As in, 20% annual revenue with a message in English: It’s Time. growth. Valladares recently bought Welcome to Cuba. his family’s first car—a shiny pink On the flip side is the logo of Russian-made Lada 1600. He has Valladares’s packaging company, almost 30 employees, most of Adorgraf, as well as an unabashed whom earn three or more times commercial message borrowed the $20-a-month most Cuban from the new normalization of workers make. They also get benefits US-Cuba ties: “The First To Package such as family leave. A New Relationship.” Adorgraf still has just a modest Bags this nice don’t pay for workshop that sits on an unpaved themselves, after all. street near Havana’s airport. To That’s the sort of business acumen understand why the company is a that changed Valladares’s life four player, check out the wall inside, years ago. He was a middle manager where Valladares displays bags with making a middling salary at a state- his clients’ logos. Future Cuban entrepreneur Mairene Valladares (right) with a Welcome, Obama t-shirt that she and her run Cuban firm printing business “For example,” he says, “Caracol, business-owner parents, Rubén (center) and Maida, cards. One day a shop owner picked Gaviota, BDC International, Café printed. (TOM HUDSON/WLRN) up his order and mentioned he Escorial…” couldn’t find anyone in Havana Most of them are large, state-run ubén Valladares just who could print his logo on sturdy firms. And that matters a lot to might be one of the most paper bags. Cuba’s fledgling private sector. important entrepreneurs “That guy, he made the idea for Cuba today is home to half a in Cuba. me,” says Valladares, who had one million private business owners, No, he’s not a tourism of those capitalist epiphanies you or cuentapropistas. Not long ago tycoon. He’s not a tech titan. see a lot more of in communist they were considered folks making RTruth is, he makes…paper bags. Cuba today. a few extra pesos in the island’s “But we are the biggest provider A year before, President Raúl threadbare economy. of bags in Cuba,” says Valladares, Castro had expanded the range of But today they account for almost a slender, middle-aged man who private businesses Cubans could a quarter of Cuba's economy and finishes his sentences with the sort start. So Valladares and his wife, employ almost a third of its workforce. of raspy chuckle that helps people Maida, launched Adorgraf making And the fact that the state is now get through each trying day on personalized bags – with handles, a a cuentapropista customer means this island. deluxe feature in Cuba. (He makes that private ventures have assumed Valladares is especially proud of sure I see the winding yarn grips on a much more essential role. the gift bags he made for President his Obama bags.) “It’s an important psychological Rubén Valladares points to one of the printed bags he has made in his Havana workshop. His private Obama’s historic visit to Havana in The demand overwhelmed them – step,” says Augusto Maxwell, a company sells the bags to many Cuban state-owned companies. (TOM HUDSON/WLRN)

28 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 29 Cuban entrepreneur Caridad Limonta (left) who owns a clothing firm called Procle in Havana. Her son Oskar (right) will attend a business training course at Florida Reports International University this summer. (TIM PADGETT/WLRN) Reports

Cuban-American attorney who heads extent the Cuban entrepreneurs the Cuba practice at the Akerman can plug in.” law firm in Miami. Entrepreneurs like Valladares really Maxwell was in Cuba in March aren’t waiting to find out. during Obama’s visit, and he says And neither is South Florida. a big question now is whether the That’s where Valladares hooked entrepreneurs’ new clout might lead up last year with a Hialeah printing to more free-market reforms. company, Florida Flex. “That’s a conversation between “We are importing from Hialeah,” the Cuban entrepreneurs and their he says with a sly grin. government,” he notes. For months now Valladares has And it’s not any easy one. been engaged with Florida Flex in “Oh, it is very complicated for what cuentapropistas call Samsonite us,” Valladares tells me with a more importing: Bringing raw goods—in exasperated chuckle. this case, silkscreen printing ink So complicated that he has to and equipment—from Hialeah to stop speaking English and explain Havana in bulging suitcases it in Spanish. and boxes. For example, he points out: The Florida Flex, which is owned by Cuban government still won’t let Cuban Americans, is also poised to private businesses buy materials bring some of Adorgraf’s employees directly from the wholesale market. to Hialeah to train them in more It’s a power thing. So when advanced skills. Valladares needs paper from the It’s that kind of enterprising spirit state-run wholesaler to fill orders that keeps Adorgraf’s workshop for bags, his clients have to buy humming. And it earned Valladares the paper first. Then he buys it an invitation to Obama’s event with from them. Cuban entrepreneurs in Havana, It doesn’t make sense in Spanish, either. where the President gave them a Which brings us to why Valladares pep talk. printed up all those bags welcoming “Cuba’s economic future,” Obama, who is arguably the biggest Obama told the entrepreneurs champion of Cuban cuentapropistas. assembled, “depends on growth “Social responsibility is very in the private sector.” important,” he says, “but I think it’s That seems as plain as a paper bag. very important that we the private sector push to change this situation. Tim Padgett is America’s Editor at Maybe Obama can help to change WLRN News. He has covered Latin this problem.” America for nearly 25 years and In fact, Obama just took another received Columbia University’s Maria step toward that end. Only Congress Moors Cabot Prize for his body of can lift the trade embargo against work on the region. Cuba. But last March the US issued new rules that let private Cuban firms buy and sell with America and access credit there. Maxwell says that puts the ball once again in the Castro government’s court. “We’ve created the infrastructure that would allow them to plug into our side,” he says. “Now it’s up to the Cubans to figure out to what

30 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 31 COMMENTARIES Commentaries

Gelato and a Balmy Evening Ride in an American Convertible: the boys outside, also sat down for delicious, I felt sad consuming it Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos gelatos. When they saw the boys while the neighborhood kids were burst into bright lights. It was a staring, they invited them inside and being mistreated. It felt to me beautiful sight, definitely worthy of To Be or Not to Be offered to buy them a treat. like a portent of the times ahead a picture. Everyone was snapping A male employee scolded the boys and the daily injuries of class photos. Soon I couldn’t help myself; for bothering the customers and division and humiliation that are I did, too. Dutiful child that I am, I in the New Cuba ordered them to leave. Apparently, it spreading in Cuba, even as exciting thought of my parents: Would they was not the first time the boys had opportunities arise for those in a be upset? I wasn’t sure anymore to by Ruth Behar begged for ice cream. The couple position to benefit from them. I which Cuba I belonged—the Cuba purchased the gelato anyway and am a child of exiles and can’t ever of the people waiting for the bus; brought it to the boys outside and forget that, but I guess a part of the Cuba of exiles like my parents, they stood eating it there until the me has always wanted to believe who’d left and didn’t want to return; hen I first ideal of giving without putting and done in Cuba has become employee drove them off. in the ideals of equality and justice or the Cuba of people like me, started traveling a monetary value on human part of a complex reckoning, a Ice cream is a political subject symbolized by the Revolution. It coming back with our privileges to Cuba in the relationships. So I held back, not need to respond to the question in Cuba. The state-run Coppelia, has been heartbreaking to observe and our nostalgia to see how the early 1990s, sure whether to offer charity, fearing everyone is seeking to answer: where the superb Tomás Gutiérrez the disintegration of those ideals in island is changing. the few tourist I’d be taken for an obnoxious What has changed in Cuba? But Alea film, Strawberry and Chocolate, everyday life. How is it that Cuban Cuba’s independence leader, stores had dark curtains in their returning Cuban flaunting a more personal question has also begins and ends, is a socialist ice doctors have managed to reduce José Martí, who spent years as an windows.W They allowed only a my privilege. haunted me: Who do I want to be cream cathedral created soon after infant mortality below US rates, exile in New York, once wrote that few people inside at a time, part That era has ended for sure. in the new Cuba? A few experiences the Revolution in 1966. An outdoor yet little boys in Havana still beg he had two countries, “Cuba and of a concerted effort to hide their I traveled to Cuba several times have left me uneasy about my own pavilion surrounded by banyan for gelato? That wasn’t supposed to the night.” As we left the plaza goods, suppress the desire for in 2015 to take the pulse of the participation in the Cuba that trees, it has the capacity to serve up happen in Cuba. and drove on to dinner at one the vast world of material things island in the aftermath of restored is emerging. to 35,000 people a day. Coppelia I had another uneasy experience of Havana’s most exquisite unattainable to the majority, curtail diplomatic relations with the United One took place in a new gelato was a utopian effort to bring ice at the end of a week I spent with a restaurants, I found myself saying envy, and control the viral spread of States. Havana’s José Martí Airport place in the gentrifying Habana cream to the people. If you’re group of scholars and artists who a prayer under my breath: May resentment. This tension is echoed is now barely able to handle the Vieja zone, a crossroads of tourist willing to wait on a long line, you enjoyed seeing all the signs of the Cuba find its way through the in the 1985 Cuban film Lejanía numbers of US travelers passing sites, galleries, boutiques, restaurants can still get affordable ice cream in cultural and artistic rebirth in Cuba. long dark night that lies ahead. (Parting of the Ways), by Jesús Díaz, through, taking hours to transport and local residents with no running Cuban pesos, or an expedited line On our last night in Havana, we which portrays an exiled mother in luggage to the carousels. Hotels water in their apartments. Helad’oro caters to those who pay 25 times took a breezy ride in six classic Ruth Behar is the Victor Haim Perera Miami who returns to Cuba after are packed, upscale restaurants is a private business that only accepts more in CUC. In the early 1990s, American cars, impeccably restored Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at a decade away. She arrives loaded require reservations, and hipster the Cuban convertible currency when milk was scarce and one meal convertibles painted in colors from the University of Michigan. with suitcases full of clothes and spots such as Café Madrigal, with (CUC), pegged at 13% above the a day was all that most Cubans serene blue to flamingo pink. The electronics for the son she left when its exposed brick walls and edgy US dollar. (Government salaries are could hope for, people would line vintage cars seemed to have been he was a teenager, but he refuses art, are bustling. Vendors peddle in the Cuban peso, and most people up at dawn at Coppelia to buy ice waiting all those years in Cuba just to accept the gifts, finding her tourist tchotchkes on every corner earn the equivalent of $20–$30 a cream for breakfast. A wide range so Americans would come back one consumerism repugnant. and street musicians sing the month.) It offers gelato in flavors of flavors was offered in the early day and take a spin in them. I left Cuba as a child with “Chan Chan” song for a tip. Local such as mojito and pineapple. Prices days, when the Russians subsidized It was a perfect balmy evening for my parents and returned as an entrepreneurs sell services from are less than you’d pay in Europe the economy, but the moment a ride, but the thrill of being driven anthropologist. I was in a strange hairstyling to tutoring (the public or the US but expensive for the the Special Period hit Coppelia around ocean-misted Havana like role, able to move between the education system isn’t what it used average Cuban. On the day I was was reduced to offering only one a 1950s movie star died when we comforts of the emerging tourist to be) to other Cubans. Stores are there, a Cuban artist-friend and I “feminine” and one “masculine” passed a crowded bus station and I industry and the decaying socialist stocked with everything from Nikes chose simple one-scoop cones and flavor, strawberry and chocolate saw fellow Cubans waiting to catch sector that could no longer meet and knockoff Dolce and Gabbana sat down on the slippery new orange (thus the title of the movie). Flavors a bus home for the equivalent of a people’s most basic needs. The T-shirts to toilet seats (in scarce plastic chairs. As we dug into our to this day remain limited and penny. They looked weary. I turned years following the fall of the Soviet supply until now). Elders on the gelato, we saw two boys, aged 10 or the quality of the ice cream has away, afraid to catch their glance. Union were a time of hunger and street hawk a tube of Colgate or 11, their faces pressed against the deteriorated. Not surprisingly, a Moments before sunset, the scarcity, and I wanted to slip money a razor in its package. Those still shiny glass windows, staring at us. reviewer on Trip Advisor raved fleet of gaily painted automobiles, into the pockets of everyone I met. working at government jobs that They were Afro-Cuban and clearly about Helad’oro and its “all natural sounding their singsong horns, But most Cubans back then still provide a free lunch will try to sell from the neighborhood. A blond, ice cream,” exclaiming, “Forget the stopped at the Plaza of the Revolution believed in volunteerism, working their sandwich and soda for a profit. German-speaking tourist family, very low-standard Copellia” (sic). in time for us to see the outlined for the good of the people and the This year, everything I’ve seen with two children the same age as Although the gelato was indeed images of revolutionary heroes Che

32 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 33 Commentaries Commentaries

early nineteenth century, through elements in explaining why a that sentiment. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes several population responds to and believes Cubans’ belief in a separate Cuban Nationalism and the decades later and José Martí at the in nationalistic stimulation. Most identity continues to the present turn of the twentieth century, and important, nationalistic peoples time. Relations with Venezuela on to the present day. Something believe deeply in themselves. became intimate at the beginning of Future of US-Cuba Relations had to account for Cuba’s ability to Why was—and is—nationalism the twenty-first century, but Cuban maintain a separate identity during important to Cuba? officials recoiled at the suggestion by Michael Parmly the half-century when the US Whenever a population lives in that Havana “depended” on dominated its economy and society, the shadow of a larger neighbor, Caracas. Cubans remain reluctant to uba’s… geographic and then the five decades of deep that population seeks to ensure the affirm that the evolution of Cuban realities give it hostility between the island and its autonomy of its own identity. Since socialism should follow a Chinese physical unity; the northern neighbor. The factor that at least the middle of the nineteenth or a Vietnamese model. Above all, absence of formal preserved Cuba’s independence, as century, Cuba has been concerned most do not want to see a return of impediments to the much as anything else, was with preserving its independence. the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, when the spontaneous relations among its Cuban nationalism. A desire to dominate Cuba, even if US dominated Cuban economic Cinhabitants produces demographic Admittedly, the term “nationalism” not the stated policy of successive and social life. unity; the uniformed forces give it can be controversial, evoking such US administrations, was a fairly Raúl Castro would be well police unity. From ‘colonial times,’ concepts as National Socialism constant theme of prominent advised to use Cuban nationalism Cuba possesses unity in its traditions, and xenophobia. To the extent American politicians, from then- as a rallying cry to mobilize the and the essentially common destiny that nationalism is a belief in an Secretary of State John Quincy Cuban population to engage in the experienced by its various regions aggressive superiority complex, Adams and his 1823 comparison of major rebuilding that the island affirms its historical unity. The or worse, racial antagonism Cuba to “ripe fruit” ready to fall into so desperately needs. In Barack combination of those elements has towards a country’s neighbors, that the lap of the United States, through Obama, he has an interlocutor been sufficiently intense to give a opprobrium is justified. But a sense Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who ready to respect Cuban identity. certain psychological nature to the of nationalism that contributes wrote in 1895 that “the island of population that one can speak of to national unity, without an Cuba… will become a necessity.” Michael Parmly is a retired US ‘a Cuban character.’ antagonistic foreign antithesis, and In the first half of the nineteenth Foreign Service Officer who served as This description, part of Antonio that helps energize a population century, slaveholding interests in Chief of Mission at the US Interests Guiteras’s political platform for the in pursuit of positive, constructive the United States saw the sizeable Section in Havana, Cuba from 2005 political organization “Joven Cuba” objectives—an increase in well- slave population of Cuba as a logical to 2008. in 1934 (quoted in Antonio Guiteras: being for the majority, or progress reason for coveting the island as a Su pensamiento revolucionario, towards legitimate foreign policy further expansion of slave territory. Havana, 1974, p. 183), is a useful objectives—represents a positive When most of the rest of Spain’s summation of a concrete reality. factor in international affairs. In holdings in the Western Hemisphere Even today, Guiteras’s pronouncement its most strident form, nationalism won their independence in the early remains an accurate profile of the can be used as a sort of rallying cry nineteenth century, prominent island nation of some 11.2 million “to man the barricades.” In its more Americans—including many in people. Just last year, Cuban Foreign benign form, however, it can be government—saw the moment Minister Bruno Rodríguez echoed a tool for governments to explain as propitious to try to buy Cuba these sentiments at the flag-raising the need for short-term sacrifice to from Spain. The US insistence on ceremony at Cuba’s Embassy in produce long-term benefits for the including the Platt Amendment in Washington, D.C., crediting “the population as a whole. The latter the body of the Cuban Constitution free and unshakable will, unity, description characterizes the type as a condition for withdrawal of sacrifice, selflessness, heroic of nationalism most commonly American troops at the turn of the resistance and work of our people, seen in Cuba. twentieth century served as further and also the strength of the Cuban The components of nationalism confirmation for many Cubans of Nation and its culture,” for making are multiple and vary with each the US desire to control the island’s possible that historic occasion. case (and for that matter, with political destiny. Cubans had The qualities lauded in both each historical era). History and good reason to worry about their statements are part of a rich cultural geography, demography and independence, and Fidel Castro’s Satirical cartoon in ‘The Verdict’ against Theodore Roosevelt and the Platt Amendment, 1899. tradition that can be traced back economics, and culture in the desire to break ties with the US Library of Congress. (12/UIG/AFP/Getty Images) at least as far as Félix Varela in the broadest sense—all are important was a logical continuation of

34 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 35 Commentaries Commentaries

Cuba and the 2016 Presidential Elections by Dario Moreno and Maria Ilcheva

he decades of Havana to a diplomatic interest Cuba would only strengthen the mutual hostility that section and restore tougher limits island’s communist dictatorship, characterized the on US government and business he pledged as president to roll back Cold War between dealings with the island. Obama’s concessions. Rubio said: A couple watches TV coverage of a US presidential election in Havana. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) the United States Senator Cruz told Fox News host First, on day one, I will give the and Cuba thawed significantly Neil Cavuto that the rapprochement Castros a choice: either continue policy changes, and with Congress of the two Republican Cuban- nominee make any course correction Ton December 17, 2014, with the repressing your people and lose the unlikely to take action he seems to American senators to maintain the on Cuba unlikely. In September with Cuba “will be remembered as dramatic announcement that the a tragic mistake.” He criticized the diplomatic relations and benefits be seeking additional opportunities hardline policy toward their parents’ 2015, Trump asserted that “the two countries would reestablish decision as part of the larger failure provided by President Obama, or to act unilaterally. At the daily press homeland, as well as their political concept of opening with Cuba is diplomatic relations. The surprise of US policy under Obama: “The carry out meaningful political and briefing on November 4, 2015, State skill in making the president’s fine… but we should have made a announcement, which followed president believes appeasement human rights reforms and receive Department spokesman John Kirby foreign policy easy political fodder better deal.” Trump has not revealed 18 months of secret negotiations works. When it comes to dealing increased US trade, investment, and confirmed that President Obama in the 2016 campaign. In response specifics of this “better deal” and between the two countries, was with tyrants and bullies, whether it support. Second, I will restore Cuba was reviewing various “options” to to the announcement of the has largely treated Cuba with designed to create a new political is Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the state sponsor of terror list until ease the trade and financial embargo thawing of US-Cuba relations, nonchalance during this election reality for Cuba policy for future whether it is Iran, or whether it is the it stops supporting designated Foreign on Cuba through executive action. Senator Rubio called Obama “the cycle. In a 1999 Miami Herald administrations to follow. To Castros in Cuba, he believes that a Terrorist Organizations, helping Obama also made a historic visit to worst negotiator that we’ve had as a interview, however, he asserted: achieve the diplomatic breakthrough, position of weakness is how we should North Korea evade international Cuba in March 2016, the first by a president since at least Jimmy Carter Yes, the embargo is costly. If I sitting US president in 88 years. formed a joint venture with Obama’s Cuba policy team not only negotiate, and that doesn’t work.” sanctions, or harboring fugitives and maybe in the modern history of The Obama administration this country.” Senator Cruz called European partners, I would make abandoned incrementalism but also While Senator Cruz has been from American justice. Third, I recognized that a slow, measured the policy “disastrous” and accused millions of dollars. But I’d rather dropped many of the demands of outspoken in his criticism of the will do everything in my power approach is likely to be overtaken by the administration of being “blind lose those millions than lose my past US administrations regarding president’s policy, Senator Rubio to provide support to Cuba’s pro- events. Kissinger’s effort to establish to the fact that they are being played self-respect. I would rather take human rights and democratization, consistently raised it as a campaign democracy movement, promote a dialogue with Cuba was disrupted by brutal dictators whose only goal a financial hit than become a demands the Castros have repeatedly greater access to uncensored issue. Cuba is an integral part of by the Angolan crisis in 1974–1975, is maintaining power.” financial backer of one of the world’s rejected. By fundamentally Rubio’s world view and a hardline information for the Cuban people, and Clinton’s “calibrated approach” The dynamics of the 2016 most brutal dictators, a man who changing the relationship Obama foreign policy committed to the and deprive the Castro regime was interrupted by the Brothers to presidential race shifted attention was once willing to aid in the hopes to permanently improve restoration of US power and of the funding for its repressive the Rescue shoot down in 1996. from Cuba to other issues of destruction of my country. To me US-Cuba relations. influence. From his seat on the security state. Incremental approaches also tend to importance to voters. In March the embargo question is no question The president’s inability to get Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clearly, with Rubio in the White fail because they do not change the 2016, Senator Rubio withdrew at all. Of course, we should keep the Republican support for his Cuba Rubio has been a powerful critic House rapprochement with Cuba fundamental relationship and are from the race after losing the embargo in place. We should keep it policy, however, may endanger its of the president’s foreign policy, would end. easily reversible. In 1975, Ford lifted Republican primary in his home until Castro is gone. long-term viability. US relations opposing negotiations with Iran over Obama opted for a dramatic the embargo on trade with Cuba by state, Florida, to Donald Trump. Given Trump’s vicissitudes of with Cuba became an early issue its nuclear program, pressing for and surprising rapprochement subsidiaries of US corporations in As of April 2016, Ted Cruz is the opinions and rhetoric, the course he in the 2016 presidential election. more support for the Syrian rebels, because, given the sensitivity of third countries; in 1992, the only remaining candidate who would take on Cuba, if elected, is While the presumptive Democratic and calling for increased military Cuba policy, his team believed Cuban Democracy Act re-imposed maintains a hardline approach anyone’s guess. nominee, Hillary Clinton, favored assistance to Ukraine to counter that any incremental approach was them. In 1977, Carter lifted the towards Cuba. If elected, he has the new policy, two of the Republican Russia’s influence. doomed to failure. Although he travel ban to Cuba; in 1982, promised to use executive action Dario Moreno is Associate Professor frontrunners adamantly opposed Rubio clearly outlined his foreign could not lift the embargo without Reagan restored it. President Obama to reverse Obama’s concessions to of Politics and International Relations normalization. Cuban-American policy views and his objections congressional approval, he used hopes that fundamentally altering Cuba, as other presidents have done at Florida International University, senators Marco Rubio and Ted to the new Cuba policy when he his substantial executive powers to US-Cuba relations will make in the past, but the unexpected rise and Maria Ilcheva is a Research Cruz, both strong early contenders addressed the Council on Foreign undermine it. Executive action was change irreversible. of Donald Trump as the Republican Associate at the Laboratory for Social for their party’s nomination, pledged Relations on May 13, 2015. the fastest and only route for the As it turned out, however, Obama frontrunner and the increasing Science Research in the University’s to downgrade the US embassy in Arguing that the new policy towards president to commence immediate underestimated the commitments likelihood that he will be his party’s Metropolitan Center.

36 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 37 Commentaries Commentaries

Cuba’s interest under the embargo. transnational ties. With memories to any other country. Canadian- Canada will find it difficult to of its pre-1959 status as an exotic Cuban people-to-people contact Canada’s Island in the Sun? compete after full normalization as tropical locale, Americans will will continue and, perhaps, expand, easier access by Cubans to American perceive Cuba as a desirable place but Cuba will no longer be Canada’s music, cinema, television and other to invest, trade, visit and establish exclusive island in the sun. The Impact of D17 cultural commodities—and the exchanges of all types. reverse, which will certainly include Cuban President Raúl Castro is Catherine Krull is Dean of the Faculty by Catherine Krull increased US imports of Cuban scheduled to retire in 2018, and of Social Sciences and Professor of cigars, rum and music, plus the whoever leads the government Sociology at the University of Victoria appeal of sun-drenched beaches for after that will need to devote more in Canada. US tourists—cements US-Cuban attention to the United States than

fter more than Canadian corporations, chiefly hotel Harper, 2006–2015) played a role half a century of companies and resource extraction in facilitating the negotiations that productive relations firms such as Sherritt International. led to Obama’s announcement of with Cuba, Canada (Under the terms of the Helms- normalized relations. can expect the Burton act, Sherritt’s corporate In the short term, D17 will not Obama Administration’s decision officers face criminal charges should significantly affect existing Canadian toA normalize US-Cuban relations they travel to the United States); investment, trade and transnational to have an adverse effect on its 2) trade (as of 2009, CAD$317.9 links. If anything, improved US- interests. From both the Canadian million in Canadian exports and Cuban relations, a weaker embargo, and Cuban perspectives, Ottawa’s CAD$500.4 million in Cuban and market opening in Cuba would formal diplomatic connection with imports); and 3) people-to-people likely benefit Canadian interests. Havana has been important. Canada contacts. By 2013, one million In the long term, however, as the and Britain were the only powers winter-weary Canadian tourists embargo disappears, Canadian trade to recognize Fidel Castro’s regime had flocked to Cuban beaches and and investment will be dwarfed from the moment it took power in cities and learned first hand about by the much larger and powerful 1959. Despite periodic difficulties— everyday Cuban life. Conversely, United States as its agribusiness, the 1962 missile crisis, the Castro especially after the onset of Cuba’s consumer industries and, perhaps, government’s Angolan intervention “Special Period” of economic banking and financial institutions in the 1970s, and the periodic hardship beginning in the early seek to recover ground lost since distaste of both Canadian Liberal 1990s, about 15,000 Cubans who 1959. Politically, under the Liberal and Conservative governments in left the island settled in Canada, government that took office in the 1990s and 2000s for Havana’s precisely because it was not Miami. October 2015, Canadian-Cuban domestic human rights record— Cuban émigrés to Canada often relations should remain on an Cuban-Canadian relations have perceive it as less racist—even if this even keel. remained positive over the years. is not necessarily true—and more For Ottawa, the main challenge Canadian anti-Americanism is liberal in its domestic social and posed by normalizing US-Cuban always just below the surface and is economic policies than the United relations is the residual influence of one element of Canada’s desire to States. Normalized US-Cuban US cultural capital on the island. pursue a sovereign foreign policy, relations will probably not have Some Canadian universities with despite pressure from Washington much of an effect on the emigration long-established agreements with to support the Cold War embargo pattern of Cubans wishing to leave the University of Havana have and, after the Soviet Union’s collapse the island for a new life in places already noticed a Cuban preference in the early 1990s, the intense other than the United States, and for expanded agreements with US economic warfare engendered by Canadian tourists will continue institutions. In other endeavors, the Torricelli and Helms-Burton going south. And Canada might still such as medical research, Cuban acts. Ottawa has opted instead have some residual political strength; advances will find a larger and for a policy of “constructive even the strongly anti-communist wealthier market that goes beyond Mario Sanabria pushes his bicycle loaded with tourist trinkets through the surf of the Atlantic Ocean. Sanabria lives in Matanzas (a nearby city) engagement” toward Cuba, based Conservative government then in Canada and the other countries and hustles the Canadian visitors that flock to the resort area of Varadero. (CYRUS MCCRIMMON/THE DENVER POST/Getty Images) on three pillars: 1) investments by office in Canada (under Stephen that have enjoyed a monopoly on

38 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 39 PHOTO ESSAY Photo Essay Cuba after D17 by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

Goodbye, CCCP. A quarter of a century after the demise of the Soviet The end of history. Slogans and car bodies converge in a parking lot Union, its iconography continues to appear on Cuban streets. (Obispo near post-revolutionary ruins. (Reina Street, Central Havana) Boulevard, Old Havana)

Socialism, sovereignty, independence. The dictionary of despotism in neo-Castrist Cuba conserves its candid calligraphy. (Miramar, Havana)

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Yankees, come home? In 2006, the Cuban government erected 140 flagpoles to obstruct critical messages running on an electronic ticker at the US Interests Section. A decade later, neither the black flags nor the ticker remains, and the US Interests Section is now the newly inaugurated US Embassy. (Vedado, Havana)

Like a parody of the canonical cha-cha-chá made famous by the Aragón Orchestra: “The Americans have arrived, and they come dancing with cash-cash-cash…” (Central Havana)

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A cobbler revolution. When a display of patriotic fervor is required, it’s almost impossible to find a cheap flag that’s not sold in convertible currency. (Central Havana)

The art of waiting along Havana’s seafront has transformed into anxiety about landing.Granma yachts are now cargo and cruise ships. (Central Havana)

McCastro self-employment. New Cuban entrepreneurs are more than willing to spur the battered national Fashion’s own Bay of Pigs. After decades of censorship, US logos and flags have peacefully invaded economy...if they can survive the totalitarian obstacles along the way. (Miramar, Havana) Cuban landscapes. (Central Havana)

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INSIDE BACK COVER ADVERTISEMENT

From brainwashing to image-washing. The Cuban auto-transition from power to power may change its variables, but the equation will remain the same. (Lawton, Havana)

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo is a Cuban writer, blogger, and photographer who currently resides in Reykjavík, Iceland, on a fellowship from the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN).

46 Hemisphere Volume 25 Hemisphere Volume 25 47 Photo Essay

U.S. Department of State Diplomacy Lab at LACC Reaching Out Together to Bring Americans into the World of Foreign Policy

Where? The Diplomacy Lab at LACC is 1 of only 4 sites in the U.S.

What? The Diplomacy Lab allows students to engage beyond the classroom, develop new ideas and solutions to the world’s toughest challenges, and contribute directly to the policy-making process.

Why? Helps the U.S. Department of State tap into an underutilized reservoir of intellectual capital and bring American people into the world of foreign policy.

How? Faculty-led teams of students at FIU are focusing on anti-corruption programs in Latin America and the Caribbean and the U.S. Department of State is channeling those findings directly into policy-making.

state.gov/s/sacsed/diplomacylab 15636_05/16

Forging Linkages across the Americas through education, research, outreach, and dialogue.

48 Hemisphere Volume 25 lacc.fiu.edu