Friday, January 23, 2015

Are Relations with Cuba Even Possible?

       
After Obama’s State of the Union speech, it left many very optimistic for the future of foreign policy especially for the reuniting of the governments of the US and Cuba. (Personally I believed this proposal to be a no brainer; It would be a bipartisan agreement and that we would just resume our previous relationship.) This is however a much more difficult situation then the very optimistic president originally gave off. Though both governments are optimistic in resuming a relationship, there are large matters where both countries hold very different points of view. Such matters include human rights violations and the fact that Cuba is a socialist single party country or in other words a dictatorship. Cuba has also been known in the past to aiding terrorist and therefore is on a US list of countries that we directly say we do not trust. Beyond these large points of controversy; there are matters of establishing embassies and determining how migration will work between the two countries. Regardless of how optimistic the two countries are there is going to be a long path in negotiations and the usual plan of pressuring another country will not work in changing Cuba’s policies.

Other than lifting the embargo, what do you believe is the most important steps in resuming a healthy relation with Cuba?
Assuming that congress lifts the embargo, how will this new economic relation effect our own economy?

Do you believe that Obama’s main intent to resume relations with Cuba is to ensure its end of supporting terrorist activities such as aiding ISIS, Russia, and North Korea; will the US even be able to change Cuban foreign policy if they still do knowing that or 50 year embargo was not successful and we have very little leverage now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/us-cuba-begin-talks-aimed-at-ending-decades-long-estrangement/2015/01/22/cda610b6-a1ba-11e4-91fc-7dff95a14458_story.html?hpid=z1

1 comment:

Catherine van Blommestein said...

It seems as though a relationship with Cuba would be good. However, we have to think of all the angles. Does this make the US look like we are okay with Communist dictatorship and human rights violations? Has Castro’s regime won? I think we have to remind ourselves why we started a trade embargo. Before we support renewed relations we need to remember the history. We do not want to become Communist sympathizers.
Cuba is in a bad spot right now because it lost economic support from Russia and Venezuela. Therefore, Cuba is in economic distress. It seems that the US is now throwing Cuba a lifeline. Our involvement will give Cuba much help such as trade and tourism. I think that if we throw Cuba a lifeline, Cuba needs to restore human rights and allow for democratic voting.