Question: summarize what you have read and how you believe
(based on what we've studied so far) that topic should be
approached from a law and policy perspective.
Introduction
The U.S.-Cuba relationship has been plagued by distrust and
antagonism since 1959, the year Fidel Castro overthrew a
U.S.-backed regime in Havana and established a socialist state
allied with the Soviet Union. During the half century that
followed, successive U.S. administrations pursued policies intended
to isolate the island country economically and diplomatically. The
United States has sanctioned Cuba longer than any other
country.
Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro, who replaced his
brother as Cuban leader in 2008, took some extraordinary steps to
normalize bilateral relations, meeting with each other, restoring
full diplomatic ties, and easing travel restrictions. President
Donald J. Trump has reversed some actions taken by the Obama
administration and raised the prospect that the United States will
further roll back ties. Both Castroism and hard-line policies
toward the United States are expected to continue under President
Miguel Diaz-Canel, who succeeded Raul in April 2018.
Cold War Antagonism
The tumultuous U.S.-Cuba relationship has its roots in the
Cold War. In 1959, Fidel Castro and a group of revolutionaries
seized power in Havana, overthrowing the U.S.-backed government of
Fulgencio Batista. Despite misgivings about Castro’s communist
ideology, the United States recognized his government. However, as
Castro’s regime increased trade with the Soviet Union, nationalized
U.S.-owned properties, and hiked taxes on U.S. imports, the United
States responded with escalating economic penalties. After slashing
Cuban sugar imports, Washington instituted a ban on nearly all U.S.
exports to Cuba, which President John F. Kennedy expanded into a
full economic embargo that included stringent travel
restrictions.
The United States severed diplomatic ties with Cuba and began
pursuing covert operations to overthrow the Castro regime in 1961.
The Bay of Pigs invasion, a botched attempt to topple Castro backed
by the Central Intelligence Agency, fueled Cuban mistrust and
nationalism, and encouraged Havana to allow the Soviet Union to
install nuclear missile sites on the island in secret. U.S.
surveillance aircraft uncovered the installations in October 1962,
setting off a thirteen-day showdown between the Kennedy
administration and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that threatened
to escalate into nuclear war. In the end, Khrushchev agreed to
withdraw Soviet missiles in exchange for a pledge from Kennedy not
to invade Cuba and to remove U.S. nuclear missiles from
Turkey.
In the decades that followed, economic and diplomatic
isolation became the major prongs of U.S. policy toward Cuba. In
1982, the Ronald Reagan administration labeled Cuba a state sponsor
of terrorism for its support of leftist militant groups in Central
America and Africa. Both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill
Clinton signed laws—the Cuba Democracy Act of 1992 and the Cuban
Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 [PDF]—that
significantly strengthened the U.S. sanctions regime, requiring
Cuba to transition to a democratically elected government that
excludes the Castros and upholds fundamental freedoms before the
embargo can be removed. Some adjustments were made to the embargo
in 1999 to allow for the export of certain U.S. medical supplies
and food products to the island, but the introduction of the
Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba under President George W.
Bush increased enforcement of existing sanctions. The Cuban
government estimated that U.S. trade restrictions cost the country
$4.6 billion in economic damages in 2015 and a total of $126
billion since the start of the embargo.
Reform and Rapprochement
During the 2008 U.S. election, presidential candidate Barack
Obama said that it was time for the United States to “pursue direct
diplomacy” with Cuba, and pledged that he would as president meet
with Raul Castro, who had recently replaced his brother Fidel as
leader. Several weeks after taking office, the Obama administration
eased restrictions on remittances and travel, allowing Cuban
Americans to send unlimited funds into Cuba and permitting U.S.
citizens to travel to Cuba for religious and educational purposes.
Over the course of his first term in office, Obama continued modest
loosening of restrictions in these areas.
Meanwhile, the new Cuban leadership also signaled an openness
to reform. Facing an aging population, heavy foreign debt, and
hardship amid the global economic downturn, Raul Castro began in
2009 to liberalize parts of Cuba’s largely state-controlled
economy, though state companies still account for roughly seventy
percent of the island’s economic activity. Reforms in subsequent
years included decentralizing the agricultural sector, relaxing
restrictions on small businesses, liberalizing real estate markets,
making it easier for Cubans to obtain permission to travel abroad,
and expanding access to consumer goods. Cuba’s private sector
swelled as a direct result, and in 2014 was reported to be about 20
percent [PDF] of the country’s workforce. Cuban government figures
estimate that the number of self-employed workers nearly tripled
[PDF] between 2009 and 2013.
Obama and Castro surprised the world in late 2014, announcing
that their governments would restore full diplomatic ties and begin
to ease more than fifty years of bilateral tensions. The historic
moment marked the culmination of eighteen months of secret
diplomacy brokered by Pope Francis in which the parties agreed to
an exchange of prisoners, including intelligence officers and a
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor, among
other concessions.
The thaw in relations continued in the months that followed.
The Obama administration eased travel and trade restrictions on
Cuba, and removed it from an official list of terrorism sponsors.
Cuba’s inclusion on the U.S. blacklist was a major obstacle to
normalization talks. The two governments also reopened their
embassies.
In early 2016, President Obama took another significant step
down the normalization path, visiting Havana in what was the first
trip to Cuba by a sitting U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge
toured the island in 1928. In a keynote address broadcast live with
Raul Castro sitting in the audience, Obama urged both countries to
press on with reforms. The Cuban government should continue
political and economic liberalization, and the U.S. Congress should
lift the trade embargo, he said. Ahead of his trip, Obama further
loosened U.S. travel and financial restrictions with regard to
Cuba. Later that year, commercial U.S. airlines began offering
service between the countries for the first time in more than fifty
years.
Days before leaving office in January 2017, Obama repealed the
so-called “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which had since 1995 allowed
Cubans who reached U.S. shores without authorization to pursue
permanent residency there. The move brought the U.S. government’s
treatment of Cubans in line with its handling of other undocumented
immigrants. The Cuban government welcomed the change and agreed to
allow back into the country all Cubans removed by the United
States.
Lifting the Embargo
Leaders in both U.S. political parties want to see the Cuban
government improve its human rights record as part of significant
political and economic reforms. Human Rights Watch reported that
Cuban authorities continued to “repress and punish dissent and
public criticism” in 2017, and the Cuban Commission on Human Rights
and National Reconciliation documented a total of 5,155 arbitrary
detentions that year.
But there is disagreement in Washington on what the United
States should do to encourage that process, particularly on the
question of the trade embargo, the major diplomatic obstacle on the
road to normal U.S.-Cuba relations. Most Democrats, along with some
Republicans, support ending the embargo forthwith, which they hope
will spur further liberalization and human rights improvements in
Cuba. On the other hand, many Republican lawmakers say the Cuban
government needs to move first and institute greater reforms before
the United States makes any more concessions.
While some analysts say Raul Castro’s departure could provide
a political window for lifting the embargo, Diaz-Canel is largely
expected to embrace the Castro brand of authoritarian communism and
the suppression of civil liberties that comes with it.
Public Opinion
There is widespread support for normalization in both the
United States and Cuba. A Pew Research poll conducted in late 2016
found that 75 percent of Americans approved of President Obama’s
decision to resume diplomatic relations, while a poll from a year
earlier found that 97 percent of Cubans thought normalization is a
positive thing for the island. Recent polling has found that the
majority of Americans also favor ending the trade embargo with
Cuba. Meanwhile, global support for normalization has been
overwhelming, particularly in Latin America. In 2016, the UN
General Assembly approved a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo
for the twenty-fifth consecutive year, with 191 member countries
backing the resolution.
Trump and U.S.-Cuba Ties
The death of Fidel Castro and election of Donald J. Trump in
late 2016 rekindled debates over U.S.-Cuba policy. President Trump
announced during a visit to Miami in June 2017 that he would
reinstate some restrictions on travel and trade that had been eased
by the Obama administration, but would not break diplomatic
relations. Trump said that the “outcome of the last
administration’s executive actions has been only more repression”
and issued a memorandum directing the U.S. Treasury and Commerce
Departments to plan for reinstating the ban on individual travel by
Americans to Cuba; halting economic transactions involving GAESA, a
military-run conglomerate; and regularly reporting on human rights
progress in Cuba. Trump said U.S. sanctions will not be lifted
until Cuba frees all political prisoners and holds free and fair
elections, among other rights-related conditions.
The administration announced in September 2017 that it would
pull two-thirds of its embassy staff from Havana, after twenty-one
American and ten Canadian diplomatic staff suffered unexplained
injuries, including hearing loss and cognitive impairment, believed
to have been caused by sonic devices. The move called for
suspending most of the embassy’s functions, including visa
processing. The Cuban government had urged the United States not to
cut diplomatic ties, denying any involvement. (U.S. investigators
have not determined who was behind the attacks.)
Some U.S. business leaders and members of Congress have
criticized the policy reversal, saying isolating Cuba could worsen
the economic and political situation there. Administration
officials said the new restrictions would not disrupt existing U.S.
business ventures; many U.S.-based companies, including Google,
Airbnb, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts, invested heavily in Cuba
following the warming of relations.
The Trump administration’s rollback, along with the reelection
of Republican majorities to the U.S. Congress in 2016, increased
the likelihood that the trade embargo will remain in place.
Republican lawmakers in both chambers have routinely blocked bills
that would roll back the embargo, a stance that is unlikely to
change with Diaz-Canel in office. “[The Trump administration’s]
policy toward Cuba is being guided by a desire to isolate and
coerce changes from the government,” says Columbia University’s
Christopher Sabatini. “As long as U.S. policy is driven largely by
hard-liners, the embargo won’t be lifted no matter who’s in
power.”