Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy

Preface to the Third Edition

Preface to the Third Edition "We will continue to enforce economic sanctions and ban travel to Cuba until Cuba's government shows real reform." With this pronouncement in Miami on May 20, 2002, George W. Bush affirmed North American determination to carry on with the forty-three-year-old U.S. embargo on Cuba and thereby became the twelfthU.S.President to uphold sanctions against the government of Fidel Castro. While much has remained unchanged in the six years since the appearance of the second edition of this book, it is nevertheless true that portents of change are everywhere to be seen. Certainly,change can be discerned in the climate of popular opinion, change that reveals itself principally in the form of new dispositions for public debate on the efficacy of a policy that previously enjoyed overwhelming and undisputed bipartisan support. In the last sixyears, public opinion pollshave shown repeatedly that a majority of the Americanpeople favor expanding contacts between the people ofboth countries. Important sectorsof the business community have raised their voices to question thewisdom of a policy that has placed Cuban markets beyond the reach of U.S. producers. Ever-growing numbers of legislators from both houses of Congress, and particularly representatives from farm states, have been among the most zealous advocates ofexpanded trade relationsbetween Cuba and the United States. In July 2002, over the strong objections of the White House, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved legislation to end the enforcement of the U.S. travel ban to Cuba. Some of these efforts have borne fruit. In 2001, Cuba purchased $30 million of U.S. agricultural products, the first transactionbetween both countries in more than forty years. Travelbetween both countries has increased markedly,allowing Cubans and North Americans tovisit each other in growing numbers and with greater frequency. Cultural exchanges have expanded. xiii xiv PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION Yet it is also true that much of what has changed has occurred within a larger context of changelessness. Political relations and economic ties remain tenuous. North Americantravel to Cuba remains subject to Treasury Department licensing procedures derived from the Trading with the EnemyActpassed in 1917 as a response to conditions occasioned by World WarI. Cuban travel to the United States is subject to the vagaries of political currents in both countries.After September 2001, the appearance of Cuba on the State Department's list of terrorist nations has implications of other kinds. For its part, the Cuban government responded with charges of its own, accusing the United States of statesponsored terrorism against Cuba and insisting that persons known to have conducted terrorist attacks against the island and its people had obtained support and sanctuary in the United States. The debate on terrorism is, of course, the most recent phase of the Cuba-U.S. dispute. Untilthe early 1990s, the United Statesjustified sanctions on Cuba as a measure against a surrogate power for the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the communist systems of Eastern Europe, sanctions were justified through charges that Cuba had established itself as a safe haven for a Caribbean-wide network of narcotrafficking. After September 2001, sanctions found renewed purpose as a measure in the war against terrorism.All the while, the issue of Cuba continued to loom large in domestic politics, made even more dramaticby the role of the state of Florida in the outcome of the 2000 presidential elections. It is not at all clear how both countries will proceed from this point forward. It is difficult to envision the circumstances under which a sitting U.S. president would travel to Havana to be received by President Fidel Castro. The United States appears to have settled into a policy best characterized as "waiting for Fidel to die." And while much intellectual currencyand many public funds havebeen expended inU.S. official circles to anticipate the form that a post-Castro Cuba will take, the history ofpast relations suggests thatNorth American policymakers will be utterly unprepared for what happens next in Cuba. ...