The rapprochement announced between the US and Cuba on Wednesday, after more than half a century of cold war speaks of President Obama’s approach of re-setting relations with countries the US had cut off. It followed 18 months of secret talks and Pope Francis’ active encouragement. With ties being repaired with Burma and Iran, and a new chapter opening with Cuba, North Korea remains the only country with which nods and exchanges have not commenced.
Although the commercial and economic blockade has not been lifted as this will need an act of the US Congress, Washington will soon open its embassy in Havana. This is a great leap forward. The US has lifted travel, remittances and certain banking restrictions with Cuba.
Cuba would be expected to ease communist state-type restrictions on its own citizens, such as releasing political prisoners, and possibly the formation of multiple political parties, besides encouraging private enterprise. After the end of the USSR, and the change in relations with China and Vietnam, the isolation of Cuba by the US seemed an anachronism. It did not help advance US interests, as Mr Obama seemed to suggest. when he went public with his Cuba announcement.
Little Cuba was economically strangulated by the US embargo, but its success with schools and hospitals mocked the American way of life. That could now change. US business will make important gains, and the US would be enabled to isolate Venezuela more effectively.
