Andres Oppenheimer in The Miami Herald:
U.S.-Cuba love affair won’t be forever
There is a lot of excitement about President Barack Obama’s lifting of key U.S. sanctions on Cuba, but allow me a word of caution: the current U.S. love affair with the island is likely to wane after the U.S. November elections, no matter who becomes the next U.S. president.
The reason is simple: it takes two to tango (or cha-cha-cha, in this case) and Cuba is doing very little to reciprocate for Obama’s major loosening of U.S. sanctions on the island. In addition, the next U.S. president will see the opening to Cuba as an Obama legacy issue, which he or she will probably not spend much political capital to keep expanding at any cost.
When he first announced his opening to Cuba on Dec. 17, 2014, Obama said — rightly — that the previous U.S. policy of sanctions against the island had failed, and that opening U.S. trade would empower Cuban entrepreneurs and begin to create an independent civil society in Cuba.
But now, more than a year later, even State Department officials who negotiated the re-establishment of U.S.-Cuba diplomatic ties are frustrated.
[…]
Over the past year, the number of arbitrary detentions of peaceful oppositionists has increased significantly, to a record 1,447 in November, according to the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
Yoani Sanchez, a courageous Cuban journalist who publishes her 14ymedio.com daily online and from abroad because the Cuban regime will not even allow her to publish it on the Internet in Cuba, wrote on Jan. 6 that “television, radio and newspapers remain under the strict monopoly of the Communist Party.”
Sanchez added, “Because of censorship, only those who agree with the government and applaud actions by government officials have access to the microphone. They never interview anyone who dares to differ.”
Despite the lack of movement on Cuba’s side, Obama announced on Jan. 27 a third round of unilateral measures to further loosen the U.S. trade embargo on the island. The latest measures will allow more U.S. visitors to travel to Cuba, and expands authorized U.S. exports to the island.
Read the entire article HERE.
It wont work, Oppenheimer. In fact, Obama’s doing everything YOU advocated for years. So now ( the tiny number of Americans who actually pay attention to Obama’s Cuba policy) recognize you as the jackass many of us recognized decades ago. “Castro’s Final Hour!” (Oppenheimer book title in 1993)….This article wont help. No jodas, chico.
It’s OK, Humberto. Oppenheimer works for the Miami Herald, which means being a jackass is par for the course. In his defense, he’s not Cuban, which isn’t much, but it’s a damn sight better than being Cuban and still “clueless.” Besides, for all practical purposes, absolutely everyone has a special papal dispensation to be “clueless” about Cuba, including non-Catholics (and atheists, of course, like Jorge Ramos–wouldn’t want to be non-inclusive or anything).