US and Cuba to Restore Diplomatic Relations in Historic Overhaul
Following Wednesday’s momentous prisoner swap, U.S. officials said the country will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time in more than 50 years, including re-opening of the American embassy in Havana which has been shuttered for nearly half a century.
In a speech on Wednesday, President Barack Obama called the U.S. embargo against Cuba “a failure.”
“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Obama said. The deal, which involved trading American contractor Alan Gross for the last remaining members of the so-called Cuban Five, will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the America” and move beyond a “rigid policy that’s rooted in events that took place before most of us were born,” Obama added.
A full end to the economic blockade against Cuba would require legislation by Congress, but the administration signaled that it would welcome that move by lawmakers. Immediate changes set to be implemented include loosening restrictions on all travel categories, remittances, and banking and financial transactions.
“The dinosaurs in Miami who have kept US-Cuba relations in the Stone Age are finally dying out,” human rights activist Medea Benjamin, who lived in Cuba for 4 years and has worked for 30 years to normalize relations, told Common Dreams. “Obama’s announcement is a recognition that the new generation of Cubans agree with the majority of Americans that the embargo is a relic of the Cold War that should be put to rest. Now we just have to overcome the dinosaurs in Congress.”
The deal comes after 18 months of secret negotiations in Canada, as well as a meeting in the Vatican, and one final 45-minute telephone call between Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro on Tuesday.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest released a statement Wednesday admitting its decades-long failure in Cuban relations. “It is clear that decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our enduring objective of promoting the emergence of a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba,” the statement said. “We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse.”
Guardian journalist Ewan McCaskill called the deal “a [b]reakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations after a wasted half-century of mindless hostility and sanctions.”
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said the change in policy towards Cuba was prompted by a political shift in Latin America that has seen the U.S. become increasingly isolated diplomatically in the region.
“Relations between Latin America and the Obama administration have been the worst probably of any U.S. administration in decades,” Weisbrot said on Wednesday. “This will help, but new sanctions against Venezuela will also raise questions in the hemisphere about whether this is a change in direction or merely a giving up on a strategy that has failed for more than 50 years.”
“Because of the historic transition in Latin America over the past 15 years, with left governments elected in most of the region, basically the rules and norms were changed for the whole hemisphere. Various Latin American governments—and not just those on the left—have been increasingly vocal in recent years that the status quo cannot stand, and that Cuba must be treated as an equal, and welcomed into fora such as the Summit of the Americas,” Weisbrot said. “Washington’s Cuba policy is being pulled into the 21st Century thanks to this regional shift.”
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