As the current U.S. administration reviews U.S.-Cuba policy and what changes, if any, to make, the following should be considered:
- Cuba is a failed economy. Not the result of the U.S. embargo but the consequence of failed economic policies. Not unlike the former eastern European economic systems, the Cuban state-controlled system does not produce; does not encourage the workers to produce and does not provide incentives to create prosperity.
- To provide aid, tourism, remittances, loans to a failed economy is to reward failure and to encourage those policies that have proven as failures in the past.
- U.S. policy toward Cuba should follow, not precede, Cuban policies to bring about economic changes in the island, policies that encourage private initiatives and an irreversible move toward a market economy.
- It should not be U.S. policy to support oppressive, failed economic systems that use economic policies to enslave their people and keep them dependent on the state.
- If we support Cuba, why not North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and other countries that cling to totalitarian systems that have failed to modernize and improve the living conditions of their populations.
- President Barack Obama’s normalization of relations with Cuba had little impact on Cuba’s alliance with Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. The closer relations that these countries have developed with Cuba were not affected. Their aid is not conditioned on changes in Cuba. They share with the Cuban leadership a virulent anti-Americanism. They all share a belief that the world convergence of forces are moving against the U.S. Despite economic difficulties, Cuba is unwilling to renounce these alliances and accept a role as a small Caribbean country, friendly to the U.S.
- Cuba is unwilling to renounce the support and close collaboration of countries like Venezuela, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia in exchange for an uncertain relationship with the United States. At a time that anti-Americanism is strong in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere, Cuba’s policies are more likely to remain closer to regimes that are not particularly friendly to the United States and that demand little from Cuba in return for generous aid.
- Yet there is the strong belief in the United States that economic considerations could influence Cuban policy decisions, and that an economically deteriorating situation could force the Cuban regime to move Cuba toward a market economy and eventually toward political reforms. This has not happened and is not likely to happen.
- America’s long-held belief that through negotiations and incentives we can influence Cuba’s behavior has been weakened by its leaders’ unwillingness to provide major concessions to the United States. They prefer to sacrifice the economic well-being of the Cubans, rather than cave in to demands for a different Cuba, politically and economically. Neither economic incentives nor punishment have worked with Cuba’s leadership in the past. They are not likely to work in the future.
- In Cuba we should not follow policies that perpetuate the system. We should encourage policies that bring about a change in the economic, political, and human spheres. Only when the Cuban regime shows a willingness to open their society, economically and politically, and respect human rights should U.S. policy change.
*Jaime Suchlicki is Director of the Cuban Studies Institute, CSI, a non-profit research group in Coral Gables, FL. He is the author of Cuba: From Columbus to Castro & Beyond, now in its 5th edition; Mexico: From Montezuma to the Rise of the PAN, 2nd edition, and of Breve Historia de Cuba. He is a highly regarded consultant to the public and private sector.
