Obama’s Cuba Thaw: Still a bad deal ten years later

What did the U.S. get out of this deal?  I’m talking about reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba 10 years ago. The answer is nothing, unless you are one of those who believes that the Castro regime is about to reform the economy, allow an independent media, and hold multi-party elections.  

I have a dual perspective on this issue.  I can address it as a Cuban-American and as a U.S. citizen.  In other words, I want the best for those on the island and in my adopted homeland, the U.S. As a Cuban-American, I can tell you that normalizing relations had little impact on the Cuban people. 

Everything of consequence in Cuba is owned by the Castro family or the military, as Professor Jaime Suchlicki pointed out in the past:

Money from American tourists would flow into businesses owned by the Castro government thus strengthening state enterprises. The tourist industry is controlled by the military and General Raul Castro.    

Tourist dollars would be spent on products, i.e., rum, tobacco, etc., produced by state enterprises, and tourists would stay in hotels owned partially or wholly by the Cuban government.

The principal airline shuffling tourists around the island, Gaviota, is owned and operated by the Cuban military.

Why are we consolidating their hold on the Cuban economy?  In other words, you are not going to Cuba to start a joint venture with a Cuban entrepreneur.  Instead, you are aligning yourself with a state enterprise that benefits a small group of elites related to the Castro family or the infamous Castro Inc.  

For over four decades, Fidel Castro has arbitrarily controlled and had at his sole disposal practically all of Cuba’s financial and economic resources. According to countless first-hand reports by former regime higher-ups, he alone and at his discretion has the last word on all decisions affecting the political and economic destiny of the entire Cuban nation. Most Cuba experts and scholars agree on this point. Alcibíades Hidalgo, one of the highest-ranking defectors ever to flee the island, explained: “It is simply impossible to undertake any political or economic initiative in Cuba. The only option one has is to surrender to the dictates of the regime and to the thinking of the one and only maximum leader, who is above all the citizens.” …

“Fidel is accountable to no one and is able to live his own reality.”

As a U.S. citizen, raised here, and the father of three sons born in Texas, I don’t see how this decision projects strength or promotes U.S. interests around the world.  What message are we sending to the world?  Will rogue states understand that it’s convenient to capture a U.S. citizen and then demand concessions from the U.S.?

What about the $7 billion of U.S. investment stolen by the Communists, or the reason that the embargo was created in the first place?  Who is going to compensate these U.S. investors?  Did the Cuban government agree to do it?  

Ten years later and still a bad day for freedom and the families of the thousands executed by the Cuban regime over the years.    

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3 thoughts on “Obama’s Cuba Thaw: Still a bad deal ten years later”

  1. The US was never supposed to benefit. That was not Obama’s goal with anything he did as POTUS. Cubans, of course, were of no interest to him, like they weren’t to JFK. He didn’t completely exclude non-Castronoid Cubans from his secret machinations for nothing. Of course, he wasn’t the only one who pulled that number. There was also a certain Argentinian cleric based in Rome, who did it then and would do it again.

  2. Obviously Obama had zero respect for Cubans, and he’s hardly unusual; as far as that goes. That’s actually the rule, not the exception. Maybe we should ask ourselves why that is, because it’s partly our fault.

  3. Obama wanted to re establish diplomatic relations and business relations with Cuba he is a politician but what is really sad are all those Cuban businesspeople that were born in Cuba and came to the US with their families to escape persecution and lack of freedom and now they are trying to do or are doing business with Cuba..

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