Why the US failed in Cuba

This article is over 30 years old, but Cuba still has a socialist authoritarian government. After the collapse of the USSR, its primary benefactor. After the death of Fidel Castro and the retirement of Raul Castro. Decades of US boycotts and saber-rattling have failed to elicit regime change. That’s because the US never trusted American capitalism.

What we should have done is love bomb Cuba with tourism and trade. Far from propping up Castro, it would have reminded Cubans daily of what they were missing. And by abandoning military threats, we would have dissolved the glue that holds many dictatorships together—the external threat.

“Cuban leaders have long experience in administering repression and adjusting to hardship. What they do not know how to deal with is openness and peace . . . the United States should . . .  stop assisting Cuba’s censorship of information: allow A.T.&T.’s telephone link on a commercial basis; permit the sale of fax machines and other communications equipment; lift regulations impeding U.S. citizens from traveling to Cuba; foster academic, cultural and artistic exchanges; arrange for the opening of news bureaus in Havana and Washington; nurture technical cooperation between U.S. and Cuban institutions to protect migratory species, clean up pollution in the Straits of Florida and exchange information on hurricane tracking. The fact of such cooperation should be broadcast to Cubans.

“To remove aspects of the U.S. embargo beyond communications would require reciprocal changes in Cuba. But having demonstrated a willingness to lift restrictions in one area, the United States could use the remainder of the embargo as an active instrument of negotiation to bring about further opening. Such U.S. policies would at last permit the more normal unfolding of a political process in Cuba, permitting some officials and party members to advocate more openly a redirection of policies. They would also allow regime opponents to build on the evident discontent and galloping inflation in illegal markets. A more varied politics could become possible in Cuba—at first simply as tendencies within the Communist Party—but only if U.S. policy changes so that Cubans who seek change would no longer be vulnerable to the accusation that they are traitors to the homeland.”

The west traded with the Soviet Union. And ultimately, it was western capitalism that exposed the rot that was the Soviet empire. Even today, hot on the heels of its kidnaping of the Venezuelan president, the Trump Administration is menacing Cuba with the threat of regime change. Why not trust the strength of American capitalism and American democracy instead? Could it be that the Trump GOP has other plans for US democracy and capitalism here?

 

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/cuba/1993-03-01/secrets-castros-staying-power?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fabackstory&utm_campaign=NEWS_FA%20Backstory_021526_Secrets%20of%20Castro%E2%80%99s%20Staying%20Power&utm_content=20260215&utm_term=A

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