Historic Change with Cuba

The normalization of relationships with Cuba is a reasonable, courageous decision by President Barack Obama. More than 50 years of U.S.-led blockage were unsuccessful, and yet this action will bring another political storm to the White House.

The President had already expressed his intention of doing away with a policy stuck in the past. Breaking a tenet of U.S. foreign policy using administrative action will only reignite Republican criticism of what they already call an “imperial presidency.”

Added to this are the protests of a generation of Cuban-American politicians who refuse to accept the failure of the embargo as an instrument of change for Cuba.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) already said that he will make every effort to block Obama’s action as soon as he is named chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Western hemisphere affairs. He will oversee the confirmation of the new ambassador in Cuba.

Obama’s decision challenges the U.S.’ parochial policy of focusing on the exiled Cuban community’s feelings, instead of American interests. The island is not anymore a platform for soviet missiles or Latin American guerrillas, as in past decades.

It’s true that Cuba is ruled by a dictatorship with limited freedoms. We know that the long, failed blockage didn’t improve conditions on the island. Experience says that human contact, commerce and strengthened relationships with the exterior are the best ways to open up a closed system like Cuba’s.

Also worth mentioning is Pope Francis’ involvement in bringing the two nations together. The Vatican showed its political capacity as mediator, which is always necessary in many other conflicts.

This change will also eliminate a permanent obstacle in the U.S. relations with Latin America, as is the Cuban issue.

The Cuban embargo is a political relic. The opening of relations is not an award for the Castro brothers, but a new pressure. There will not be any more excuses to repress invoking the “enemy threat”. More eyes will be in the island, watching what’s going on there. This is the dawn of a new era in a complicated relationship