The Wall Street Journal New York, New York 22 March 2016
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U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, Inc. New York, New York Telephone (917) 453-6726 • E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.cubatrade.org • Twitter: @CubaCouncil Facebook: www.facebook.com/uscubatradeandeconomiccouncil LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/u-s--cuba-trade-and-economic-council-inc- The Wall Street Journal New York, New York 22 March 2016 Obama’s Speech Stirs the Spirit in Cuba Watching his nationally televised speech, Cubans recall the past and ponder the future Tourists buying antiques in a Havana shop Tuesday watched the nationally televised speech of U.S. President Barack Obama, broadcast from the Old Havana area. Photo: Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press By Jose de Cordoba HAVANA—Watching President Barack Obama’s nationally televised speech to the Cuban people from her home in Havana’s once upper-class Vedado neighborhood, the eyes of retired biologist Rosa María Coro Antich grew watery. Mr. Obama made a stirring case for democracy and freedom on Tuesday, telling Cubans in a vibrant speech that people in this island nation and their relatives in the great Cuban diaspora should come together. Mr. Obama’s words struck home for Ms. Coro Antich, 64 years old. Her father’s family, most of whom have long since fled to the U.S. and Spain, had cut all ties to him because of his deep sympathy for the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. “For a long time I’ve wanted to make an organization of Cuban women for reconciliation,” she said, dabbing her eyes. But such groups are illegal in Cuba. “I gave up,” she said. In the parlor of the elegant house, with Greek columns and marble floors, Ms. Coro Antich poured a round of rum for herself and her guests to regain their composure after Mr. Obama’s speech, broadcast from Old Havana on the final day of his trip. Ms. Coro Antich, who augments a meager pension teaching English to college-age Cubans, said she liked Mr. Obama’s vision of the future. But she was saddened that many of Cuba’s young people did not see a future for themselves on the island. “They are overwhelmed,” she said of the youths she knows. “Most want to leave, and every time one leaves, I suffer.” Like many other Cubans, Ms. Coro Antich said, she appreciated Mr. Obama’s respectful attitude toward the island. “I like very much looking toward the future, but you can’t forget the past,” she said. “We have been forced to defend ourselves for such a long time. Our culture and identity are created by our past.” Ms. Coro Antich said she was already on President Obama’s wavelength, but that the speech “might open the eyes a bit of people who aren’t.” Jesús, her husband, a retired Communist official, was dry-eyed. But he said that Mr. Obama had been brave to come to Cuba. “He came here with the idea of winning over the Cuban people,” he said. “He has helped Cuba a lot.” Later on Tuesday, Mr. Obama met with dissidents and others active in civic life at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. “It requires, oftentimes, great courage to be active in civic life here in Cuba,” Mr. Obama said at the meeting, where he sat with about a dozen prominent Cubans around a small oval table. Ovidio Martin Castellanos of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, a prominent opposition group whose leader, Jose Daniel Ferrer, was among the dissidents who met with Mr. Obama, said the U.S. president sent a clear message for change, “but that it is in the hands of the Cuban people.” “It’s the Castro regime that doesn’t want to accept change.” Mr. Castellanos added. “They are between the sword and the wall.” Instead of urging Cuban officials to “tear down” their system as former President Ronald Reagan implored the Soviet Union to do in Berlin in the 1980s, Mr. Obama “declared that he would leave Cuba convinced and hopeful that the Cuban people had already begun building bridges to a shared and prosperous future,” said Ted Henken, an expert on the Cuban economy at Baruch College in New York, who traveled to Havana to witness the presidential visit. While Mr. Obama’s speech and visit represent a challenge to the Cuban leadership, their real impact won’t be known in the short term, some experts say. “It’s going to be years,” said John Kavulich, president of the U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which advocates for more U.S. business access to the island. An early indication of that impact will be what if any policy changes emerge from the Cuban Communist Party Congress in mid-April, he said. “The U.S.-Cuba relationship is a series of moments,“ he added. “With every peak there is a valley. The valley this time is how and when the Cuba government responds.” Marketplace Los Angeles, California 22 March 2016 Obama speech is eagerly awaited in Cuba By Tracey Samuelson Listen to this story Download Embed U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro listen to live music during a state dinner at the Palace of the Revolution on Monday in Havana, Cuba. - Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images President Obama continues his historic visit to Cuba with a speech directed at the Cuban people Tuesday morning at El Gran Teatro de Havana. The initiatives the White House has undertaken in the last 15 months to normalize ties with Cuba, loosen travel restrictions, and allow the country to use the U.S. dollar for international transactions, among other changes, are already having a significant financial impact on the island. The changes will amount to $800 million in potential savings and new revenues for Cuba by the end of 2016, according to new estimates by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. “It’s a huge number,” said John Kavulich, the organization’s president. “It’s all new money.” Moving forward — absent Congress fully lifting the embargo, which is not likely any time soon — “the number one goal of the Cuban government, and thus the Cuban people, would be to access U.S. credit markets,” said Kavulich. “Not just from the U.S. private sector, but from the U.S. government.” However, he noted that even if Cuba were to gain access to programs at the Department of Agriculture or the Export-Import Bank, for example, the country would still struggle to qualify for credit, “because of their chronic shortage of foreign exchange and their chronic inability to pay their commercial and government- to-government bills on time.” In addition to Congress, the ball also rests in the Cuban government’s court, said Theodore Henken, a professor at Baruch College who is currently in Cuba for President Obama’s visit. He said Cubans often refer to an “internal embargo that restricts their economic and political and civic freedoms” as the ‘auto-bloqueo.’ The people’s top item for that domestic to-do list: “Internet, internet, internet,” he said. “Affordable, wide-access, unfiltered and uncensored internet.” The Wall Street Journal New York, New York 22 March 2016 Havana’s Wary Quest for Foreign Funds Hits Hurdles By Dudley Althaus President Barack Obama’s trip to Cuba is bolstering hopes that a flood of investment and tourists across the Florida Straits will extend prosperity and freedom to those living on the communist-ruled island. But entrepreneurs and consultants who have spent years trying to achieve the same goals say such plans may founder on the island’s hard realities, despite the Cuban government’s wary quest for foreign funding. One obstacle is the revolutionary DNA of Cuba’s Communist leaders, who harbor suspicion of—and at times open hostility toward—profit-making enterprise. Equally important is the U.S. trade embargo, which despite Washington’s whittling over the past 15 months, continues enforcing strict limits on American trade and investment. Many of the U.S. executives who have taken a look at the island amid the first steps toward normalization between the two Cold War foes intend to sit on their hands for now, according to a survey of 437 business executives recently conducted by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which advocates an end to the embargo. “It’s not only the bureaucracy. It’s the Cuban government’s view of its economic, social and political system,” said John Kavulich, the president of the New York-based advocacy group. “The Cubans are less than enthusiastic.” Cuban officials say they hope to attract some $2 billion annually in foreign investment in coming years. Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. on Saturday said it had landed a multimillion-dollar deal to manage two upscale Havana hotels and signed a letter of intent to assume management of a third. Yet, despite the crush of pitchmen pouring into Havana, only three dozen foreign-investment projects have been approved since a new investment law was adopted in 2014, Cuban officials say, out of a total of 200 on the island. “This is not about doing whatever project that interests whichever foreign investor,” Deborah Rivas, the Cuban official charged with coordinating foreign investment, recently told Granma, the Communist Party’s newspaper. “We aren’t in the process of accelerating the privatization of the Cuban economy.” That reticence clashes with the deal seekers crowding Havana’s upscale hotels and restaurants, said Mark Entwistle, who was Canada’s ambassador to the island in the 1990s. Few of the scores of Canadian companies that led the charge into Cuba in the 1990s remained a decade later, said Mr.