Raul Castro is slated to depart this February from a leadership position in Cuba that has been in the Castro family for 58 years. For a country so physically close yet so diplomatically isolated from us, Cuba has always fascinated. I visited the island for the first time two weeks ago, in a combination business and tourist capacity. The visit validated the long-term fascination; it’s an exciting, intriguing, culturally rich island. But optimism about an imminent turn in the six-decade, troubled US-Cuba relationship was, by the end of the journey, in short supply.
From a business perspective, the tectonic plates had shifted in the last years of the Obama Administration; although the US Embargo remained in place, Obama’s Treasury Department relaxed restrictions on individual travel and business investment. A mini-surge in both areas was underway until last summer.
- To the consternation of many Cubans (but not to the Cuban community in “Little Havana, Miami!), President Trump in June reversed some, but not all, of these initiatives. Individual tourist travel was made more difficult, but not group travel as part of a cruise, for example.
- And US businesses are now restricted from interacting with any Cuban counterparts who appear on the so-called “entity list,” a reversal meant to restrict financial support to the pervasive Cuban military.
In this light, what do Cuban trade officials desire most, given current US political realities? Three areas stand out:
- First, they want to press Washington for an expansion of US business investment in the newly-created “Mariel Economic Development Zone.” As of now, there are only two US businesses with any presence there — a Caterpillar distributor and a NY bio-tech firm in the process of locating, both ventures started under the Obama “relaxation.” Given the enormous investment the Cubans have pushed into this sparkling new port, their rationale is obvious.
- Second issue concerned travel: Cuban officials want help from the US Congress or the executive branch in clarifying US Treasury Department permissible travel categories, so that the catch-all “support to the Cuban people” category might be more liberally interpreted, to foster greater US travel.
- And finally, they seek help in Washington in trying to restart the "US – Cuban Business Dialogue” along the lines of what was begun under President Obama. Cuban trade officials feel that much had been accomplished in the brief time that this official-level Dialogue was active.
Realistically, as modest as these requests might appear, little progress in any of these areas is likely for the duration of the Trump Administration.
Beyond a narrow-business focus, and strictly on a personal basis, two observations strike any first-time visitor to the island:
- First, the still sad shape of the economy. Except for Mariel port, infrastructure is decrepit; antiquated factories (many closed) abound, construction projects (e.g., hotels, proudly highlighted) are in perpetual delays, and renovation projects, despite thousands of scaffolds, never seem to be worked on. In this light, it’s not surprising that deepened US trade is one of the government’s highest priorities.
- At the same time, there is intense pride in Cuba's survival of their time of troubles, i.e., the collapse of the Soviet Union and then the significant reduction of support by Venezuela in the wake of oil price declines. The problem always for Revolutionary regimes is translating revolutionary fervor into sound governance; Cuba is not even close to making that transition.
With Raul's imminent departure, the question in every Cuban town is: who succeeds him? It's still anyone's guess; Raul has tabbed his first Vice President, Miguel Diaz-Canel. But whoever leads from Havana, whether it is Diaz-Canel or the generals behind the scenes, is unlikely to usher in a Cuban economic or political "spring."
