Hope Is Not a Strategy -- It's Time to Engage Cuba in Robust International Trade

When Fidel Castro underwent serious surgery two weeks ago, the U.S.'s policy toward Cuba was back on the front page.  What has been striking in the reactions is the degree to which they shed light on our long standing policy toward Cuba -- impose an economic boycott and hope something changes.  The hopes that things might change were on high alert with Castro's surgery and temporary disappearance from the public eye.  For a post discussing some of the reactions in the press and from public officials such as Senator Mel Martinez, see the article from the Miami Herald featured in a post on the always excellent The Latin Americanist blog.

In training sales and marketing people to develop actionable business development plans, one of our mantras was always "Hope is not a strategy."  I think the same should apply to U.S. policy toward Cuba.  We have been pursuing the economic embargo / isolation / punishment tact for 40 years with absolutely no results.  I think the more than four decades of failure explain why the tone of reactions to recent events sound only of hopes instead of action.

I have advocated elsewhere in this blog that robust international trade can produce the sorts of economic interdependencies and cultural integration that may be one of the greatest chances we have for peace to supplant chaos in the modern "flat" world we inhabit where one country can't avoid the impacts of problems on the other side of the globe to say nothing of problems a few miles off its shore.  Cuba is no exception -- indeed it may be the perfect place for a change in policy in this direction to work.

In the days of the delicate balance of power between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, it may have made political sense to isolate Cuba to contain the impact that a Soviet satellite state might have so near to our borders.   But the threat of Soviet missiles in Cuba is long gone and no longer relevant.  Indeed, our continued economic isolation of Cuba has impelled them into the arms of China in seeking a significant global trading partner, setting up the conditions for the Soviet threat to be replaced at some point by the Chinese threat as China continues its march toward being the world's "other" superpower.

Likewise, one can hardly argue that the one party communist regime that rules Cuba necessitates a policy of economic isolation.  In this limited respect, China is of course no different, and yet our policy from Nixon's historic visit to the extension of membership in the WTO and the granting of permanent normal trade relations has been one of affirmative economic engagement, seeking to create greater ties that might diffuse any threat that China might otherwise present.  For more discussion on this, see some of the excellent blogs on China such as the China Law Blog and the Angry Chinese Blogger. 

We are waiting and hoping for a democratic revolution in Cuba, but it seems clear that democracies only take root in countries that have developed a sufficient middle class such that there are enough people with sufficient stake in political outcomes to care and sufficient resources to take action.  By isolating Cuba economically for so many years, we have consistently denied the people the one avenue of robust economic activity that might have permitted the development of these necessary conditions for democracy.  And so the Cubans remain seemingly apathetic subjects of the communist dictatorship and we continue our policy of hoping that something might change.

China certainly appears to be a model as to how economic development and empowerment of a consumer class is creating pressure on its traditionally closed government to open up its policies in many areas.  With many fewer people to bring up into middle class status, the process could conceivably move much more quickly in a country such as Cuba.  It's time that the U.S. lifted the economic embargo and engaged Cuba in trade, providing its people the opportunity to develop a market and grow not only their economic freedom, but their political freedom along with it.

Comments

[ACB]

"We are waiting and hoping for a democratic revolution in Cuba"

On the whole, I'd prefer democratic evolution and reform, to an actual revolution.

People tend to die in revolutions, and the governments that they put in place often don't stay democratic for all that long.

[Craig Maginness]

Dear ACB:

Thanks for checking in. I absolutely agree with your point that a violent overthrow in which people die is not the answer. According to the relevant definitions in Websters, a revolution is "a fundamental change in political organization" or "activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation." While it is sometimes accomplished by para-military means, that is not a necessary ingredient of a revolution.

My hope is that engaging Cuba in trade will provide the basis for the development of a middle class with a stake in the outcome of policy decisions which will in turn provide the necessary underpinnings for a democratic transformation. If you are more comfortable calling that an evolution instead of a revolution, I'm ok with that.

I infer from your post that you agree that the change taking place in China provides a reasonable model for this kind of transition -- which was another one of my points and the among the reasons for referring readers to your excellent blog on China. Keep up the great work.

Craig