Fifty Years of Revolution: Perspectives on Cuba, the United States, and the World

5. Does the Canada-Cuba Relationship Offer Any Lessons for Washington?

5 Does the Canada-Cuba Relationship Offer Any Lessons for Washington? Peter McKenna and John M. Kirk It doesn’t make sense to reward a dictator in our hemisphere who is completely behind the times. You reward him by sending your foreign minister down to visit, by having visits as usual, by trading. And we think that’s wrong. U.S. State Department Spokesperson Nicholas Burns, quoted in Laura Eggerston and Paul Knox, “Cuba Law Swaying Canada, U.S. Says,” Globe and Mail, January 22, 1997. These noticeably and largely uncharacteristically blunt remarks by a senior U.S. State Department official are emblematic of how Washington has consistently viewed the Canada-Cuba relationship since 1959. It also nicely encapsulates the decades-long U.S. approach to Cuba—that is, no truck or trade with the “enemy.” In addition, it certainly betrays a deep U.S. displeasure and frustration with the willingness of Canadian officials to engage with their Cuban counterparts. This outburst, though, likely says more about the dysfunctional U.S.-Cuban relationship than it does about the historic pattern of Canada-Cuba relations. Indeed, U.S. protestations in the end had little impact on Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy’s January 1997 visit to Cuba or Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s follow-up April 1998 trip to Havana. Still, prime ministers and cabinet ministers, along with their officials in Ottawa, do recognize that Canada’s most important foreign policy relationship is with the United States—and most assuredly not with Cuba. (In terms of trade, total annual bilateral trade between Canada and Cuba amounts to roughly one day of trade between Canada and the United States.) In practice , then, this means that Canada has had to formulate and implement its Cuba policy by factoring into the equation the expected U.S. response and reaction to it. Stated differently, one cannot understand Canadian-Cuban Does the Canada-Cuba Relationship Offer Any Lessons for Washington? · 91 relations without first examining that relationship through the CanadaU .S. prism. This does not mean, however, that Canada’s position toward revolutionary Cuba is expressly dictated from Washington, or indeed that Ottawa crafts its policy fearful of official U.S. reaction. Rather, the policy approach is generally calibrated and executed within the wider context of CanadaU .S. relations—recognizing that the United States is Canada’s largest trading partner, closest military ally, and most important diplomatic friend. The so-called U.S. factor is obviously a contextual or background variable, influencing the specific details of Canada-Cuba relations, but not defining the broad strokes of bilateral interaction. Put another way, Canada is free to engage the Cubans diplomatically, but it should think twice before inviting Raúl Castro to Ottawa for an official state visit. The overarching aim of this chapter, then, is to examine whether the nature and extent of Canada-Cuba relations highlight any weaknesses or shortcomings in the U.S.-Cuban relationship. In an effort to shed some explanatory light, it will outline how (and why) Canada has generally looked askance at the hard-line U.S. approach espoused by ten American presidents since 1959. Secondly, it discusses how Ottawa—in sharp contrast to Washington—has opted for dialogue and engagement with Cuba over unflinching hostility and isolation.1 Thirdly, it explores both the advantages and disadvantages of engaging the Cubans across a wide swath of policy areas. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the United States— especially now that a more moderate Obama administration will want to put its own stamp on U.S.-Cuban relations—could benefit from its northern neighbor’s longstanding approach toward revolutionary Cuba. U.S.-Cuban Relations: The View from Ottawa Over the years, the chasm between Ottawa’s and Washington’s policies toward Cuba has fluctuated—reflecting different political parties and personalities in both the White House and 24 Sussex Drive. By way of illustration, the Conservative governments in Canada (including those of a “progressive ” variety) have tended to shorten the policy gap with their hard-line Republican counterparts in the United States in terms of the “Cuba question .” Liberal governments, in contrast, have often increased the gulf between themselves and both their Republican and Democratic colleagues south of the border on matters involving Cuba. In general, though, the overarching goals of Canada and the United States toward Cuba have been 92 · Peter McKenna and John M. Kirk similar—namely, economic...