u.s.-cuba diplomacy - council on foreign relations

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After the Thaw: What's Next inU.S.-Cuba Relations?Interviewee: Julia E. Sweig, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for

Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies

Interviewer: Danielle Renwick, Copy Editor

December 19, 2014

The announcement that the United States and Cuba will open diplomatic ties

for the first time in fifty-three years has been met with relief, anger, and

questions on both sides. The policy shift comes at a time of growing consensus

in the United States that a new approach is in order, says CFR Senior Fellow

for Latin America Studies Julia E. Sweig, who believes U.S. engagement with

Cuba will bring reform to the island in the long term. "It will be very hard to

keep the lid on the population's interest in dynamically participating in political

debate and seeing themselves as citizens of the globe, not just of one island,"

says Sweig.

Julia Sweig Discusses U.S.-Cuba Diplomacy - Council on For... http://www.cfr.org/cuba/after-thaw-next-us-cuba-relations/p3...

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A

man sits at his home watching Cuba's President Raul Castro speak during a

television broadcast in Havana December 17, 2014. (Photo: Stringer/Courtesy

Reuters)

Reestablishing diplomatic ties could be seen as risky for both sides,

especially on the U.S. political front. Why were Presidents Barack Obama

and Raul Castro willing to take this risk now?

In both cases the risks are far outweighed by the rewards. In the United States,

the opportunity for President Obama to seize upon this issue and turn it into

one of his major foreign policy legacies is significant. [It not only writes] a new

chapter after fifty years of stasis in the U.S.-Cuban relationship, but more

broadly allows the United States to restart a conversation and rebuild its

standing in Latin America.

The domestic politics in the United States are such that Obama has an

opportunity. The Cuban-American community is not a monolith: Obama won

[the Cuban-American] vote in the state of Florida in the 2012 elections.


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"There is a near-unanimous consensus in the United Statesin the private

sector, editorial opinion, cultural sectors, and educational institutionsthat its

time to move on and approach Cuba differently."

There is a near unanimous consensus in the United Statesin the private

sector, editorial opinion, cultural sectors, and educational institutionsthat its

time to move on and approach Cuba differently. The president regards that as

far more significant than the voices of the serious opposition, which still exist,

but whose own constituents are now traveling and sending remittances to their

families in Cuba.

In Cuba, Raul Castro has said he will step down in 2018 and has designated

his successor, [Vice President Miguel Daz-Canel]. He has consolidated his

political power and has launched his slow, but modestly effective, set of

economic and political reforms. For those reforms to accelerate, the calculus is

that putting the relationship with the United States on better footing and

bringing in American capital, technology, and know-how is in the national

interest. This is especially promising given the proximity of the markets and the

geographical and historical closeness of the two societies, and given dropping

oil prices and uncertainty in Venezuela.

This move, as were already seeing, is very popular domestically in Cubanot

only because of the economic and diplomatic openings but because the"heros," the [three still-imprisoned members of the] Cuban Five [intelligence

officers arrested in the United States in 1998]; were brought home. Theirs had

been a nationalist cause clbrein Cuba for many years.

Was Cubas younger generation of leaders involved in this process of

rapprochement?


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Not that Im aware of. This is the single most important diplomatic, geopolitical

move that the Castro government has made in fifty yearsperhaps since 1962,

when it accepted nuclear missles from the Soviet Union. Some of the

negotiators, strategists, diplomats, and [technocrats] involved might be of a

younger generation, but the political decision to move forward, and to see

Obama as the best possible American partner that the Cubans could expect for

some time, was taken at the highest levels, Im sure with the endorsement of

the younger generation. But this was a Castro event.

How do you see things changing in Cuba in the coming months and

years?

The implementation of the new economic openings to the United States is

going to take some time. Various agencies will have to write and roll out

regulations, which means bureaucracy and at least some politics. The assistant

U.S. secretary of state for Latin America, [Roberta S. Jacobson], is leading a

delegation to Cuba in January for immigration talks and to further the

discussion about diplomatic relations.

[The opening of relations] is giving the Cuban population a sense that their

future wont be one of constant mobilization and tension with the United States,

but rather one of opportunities to freely pursue the cultural and family ties that

have always existed. Economic ties can now be more dominant than thenational-security conflict of the last half century.

Five, ten years down the road, if the economic openings are to deepen, then

well see Cuba become downright boring. That is, itll be a struggling,

developing economy, with a highly trained, educated class of young people.

Some of them will have left, some might return home and try to make good on


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population's interest in dynamically participating in political debate and seeing

themselves as citizens of the globe, not just of one island.

That said, I dont think we're going to see multiparty elections the day after

tomorrow, or even next yearalthough I could be wrong. Things move slowly in

Cuba. But part of the deal involves not only releasing Alan Gross, but also

fifty-three political prisoners. Thats an improvement in human rights.

What impact could this policy shift have on U.S. relations in Latin

America?

The unresolved issue of the U.S. relationship with Cuba is a huge symbolic

problem and it stands in the way of the United States being able to regain its

standing with a region that looks nothing like it did in 1959, when the revolution

took power, but also nothing like it did when the Cold War ended. Putting the

Cuba issue to rest, demonstrating the substance behind Obamas rhetoric

around partnership, and recognizing that the door to a new relationship withLatin America goes through Havana is very powerful.

I think well see the benefits of that at the Summit of the Americas in April. As a

result of this move, Obama can go, Raul Castro will go, and they can have a

conversation on democracy and human rights that would not otherwise have

been possible.


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