Trump's Cuba gambit

The U.S. oil blockade against Cuba crosses an important line at a time when crossing important lines in U.S. foreign policy seems to matter less and less.

The U.S. embargo was already severe: a ban (with exceptions) on trade and investment, plus the extraterritorial sanctions designed to make Cuba a toxic environment for investment and finance from other countries.

Supporters of this policy say that Cuba can trade as it wishes with any other country – but that can’t be said anymore, because we’re cutting off petroleum imports to a country that struggles to meet half its energy needs with domestic oil and gas and renewables. It’s effectively a blockade, and Cuba’s use of that term is no longer hyperbole.

The only possible point is to push Cuba’s economy, already hurting from its own government’s economic policies, over the brink. Which is effectively to target civilians so that their pain sparks change either through government concessions or popular uprising.

To their great credit, Miami leaders such as Congresswoman Salazar and media sensation Alexander Otaola acknowledge that we’re instrumentalizing Cubans’ pain, arguing that it will all be worth it once the breaking point is reached.

No such honesty comes from the State Department, which blithely pretends that its oil cutoff has nothing to do with a country hurtling toward a point where everything from irrigation in the fields to dialysis in the hospitals grinds to a halt. It will be “the regime’s fault” if there’s a collapse, Rubio says. And there’s endless self-congratulation over $9 million in U.S. material assistance sent in response to hurricane Melissa, delivered months after the storm passed.

Like it or not, this is how President Trump and Secretary Rubio have decided to start conversations with Cuba’s government – with U.S. hands equally on the throats of the Cuban people and government.

With Congress asleep on this and much larger questions, this policy is firm. The long debate over U.S. sanctions could soon be re-shaped, or rendered completely academic.

# # # # #

The conversations are taking place in secret. But there are things to say about the environment in which they take place.

First, there’s the context of the Trump approach to Latin America and the Caribbean, where our neighbors are viewed as subjects, their resources seem to matter above all else, and they are expected to respect U.S. primacy in matters of security, commerce, and their own foreign relations. Democracy and human rights are not particularly emphasized. The Administration’s national security strategy makes this all pretty clear. So do the collected rants of our interior minister, Stephen Miller.

Then there’s the Venezuela takeover, where a pliant leader is in place, the United States is controlling oil sales and keeping some revenue for its own benefit, and the anti-Chavista opposition is, let’s face it, rudely marginalized. (Edmundo who?) Elections will come when Rubio decides it’s time. Our embassy in Caracas is open again, an insipid proconsular presence that hosts U.S. visitors, incants Rubio’s three-step plan, and says little else.

Trump repeatedly expresses delight at the performance of “President Delcy Rodriguez” and his love for this new Venezuela model of veiled dominance. Rubio is confident in Delcy’s continued cooperation because, he coldly told Senators, “her own self-interest aligns with advancing our key objectives.”

Absent a radical change from within, the Cuban government is not a likely candidate for subordination. Even before its socialist character was declared, and then declared irrevocable, it rooted itself in Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain and the United States. If there’s a central principle in Havana’s national security doctrine, it’s never to bend to the United States because that starts a slide toward loss of sovereignty.

Trump seems to have ruled out the use of force in his conception of “taking Cuba,” so Rubio has a persuasion task on his hands – one that will require the other side to walk away from, or at least to finesse, that principle. It may be useful that Rubio is a very flexible guy when it comes to fundamental principles.

# # # # #

As talks get under way, Cuba has put itself in a particularly weak position due to its own economic policies.

As much as its economy suffers from U.S. sanctions, it’s also the case that the island’s economic welfare depends on decisions its government makes in areas that it controls. And Havana’s current economic team hasn’t at all acted, to borrow a phrase from the big guy, with la lucidez que el momento exige.

Long economic policy documents are truly devoid of actual economic concepts. Essential measures such as a new enterprise law are postponed forever. The big military-affiliated part of the state sector seems to operate autonomously, divorced from current needs and national goals. If there’s a guiding principle to discern, it’s a sterile nostalgia for the heyday of the socialist state enterprise at a time when there’s no money to rescue the hundreds of those operating permanently in the red. The result has been large-scale emigration and a Cuba less attractive to visitors and inward investment.

Now along comes Rubio, asserting that Cuba’s current course is a dead end and insisting on changes in economic policy.

And guess what? Tons of Cubans agree, including not a few party militants. So do the compañeros chinos y vietnamitas, big time, and the Russians too. So do otherwise sympathetic neighbors nearby who have welcomed their share of Cuba’s recent exodus.

So it’s a cold political fact that Cuba’s hand is weakened by its own doing. It’s hard for sovereignty and independence to be anyone’s first consideration when power is out and food is spoiling.

# # # # #

So what are these talks about? From the U.S. side, it’s apparently about fixing economic policy, getting Russia and China out of Cuba, and changing personnel in high-level government posts. Some media reports, loosely sourced, cite a goal of forcing Cuba into economic dependence on the United States, which fits with Washington’s general attitude toward the region. As things proceed, we have to remember that this U.S. Administration is frequently untruthful in word and improvisational in action.

The Cuban side has outlined a fairly normal process of two countries sitting down, identifying differences and addressing them one by one, looking for ways to cooperate on regional security, and looking for new areas of mutual benefit. (Coincidentally, the two countries are apparently cooperating in the investigation of the armed incursion on Cuba’s north-central coast last month; an FBI visit is in the works, Cuban officials say.)

If you doubt that Rubio agreed to such an outline for talks, I’m with you. If the Vatican is involved in a serious way, maybe it’s more likely. All we know about the Vatican’s role is that it says it has promoted dialogue and does not want to be described as mediator.

We spectators are frustrated by the secrecy, but if you want a serious result of any kind, the more secrecy the better – including for Rubio, who has politics of his own to navigate.

A quick Cuban capitulation would suit Rubio perfectly, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards, as evidenced by Cuba’s blunt rejection of the rather cheeky U.S. request for a special fuel shipment to keep U.S. diplomats in Havana mobile and comfortable.

So this is where things get more interesting.

# # # # #

Recall that Trump didn’t embrace the Cuba embargo until a few weeks before his first election in 2016. Until then, he had supported Obama’s opening, saying that fifty years of embargo was enough, and that Cuba should come “into the fold.” His agents schlepped out to Playa to get his trademarks duly registered in Cuba, and his executives explored business opportunities. Trump remembered their debriefing and expressed dislike at the idea of having to do business with a Cuban partner in a joint venture or similar arrangement.

So in principle Trump is all for doing business in Cuba.

Trump has made endless references to the need to “take care of” mistreated Cuban Americans who can’t go back to Cuba, often sounding oddly unaware that they fly back and forth every day. But it’s now clear from his own statements that he has Jorge Mas Santos and the Fanjul family in mind. It’s no secret that members of the latter visited Cuba during the Obama years but didn’t find a business proposition that worked.

I have no idea whether they, Mr. Mas, or others desire or would find a viable business proposition in Cuba today. But, as if responding to Trump, Cuban officials say they want Cubans abroad to do business in Cuba, and will soon issue the fine print for policies to give them greater possibilities, including forming companies of their own under Cuban law.

# # # # #

Rubio’s economic focus is at once politically deft (pushing against the Cuban government’s sore point) and politically dicey for the tensions it is causing in Miami.

Expectations on Calle Ocho are sky-high after the Venezuela operation. The fervor is not for the Venezuela model, however. It’s for installation of a new government in Havana, period – not for a long negotiation, high-level personnel changes, and economic reform.

Unlike legislators who are responsible for running their mouths, Rubio is responsible for running U.S. foreign policy. What if he judges that a big economic and commercial opening is the best near-term bet to move Cubans toward a better future?

In his remarks at a recent CARICOM event in St. Kitts, he played the consummate gradualist, saying that Cuba needs dramatic economic change, but it “doesn’t have to change from one day to the next.” “Everyone is mature and realistic here,” he added, and if reforms “open the space for both economic and eventually political freedom…we’d be helpful.”

There are lots of blanks to be filled in, which is the point of secret talks. Surely, some big moves would be needed on the Cuban side before Rubio would feel motivated to “be helpful.”

But he does seem to want to help Cuba’s private sector, and has already authorized it to import fuel. Rubio has never joined the chorus of those who say that the Cuban private sector is fake, consisting only of fronts for government entities or high-ranking officials. He has not touched the licensing policies that allow U.S. exporters to supply those private businesses’ equipment and inventory. He has not made U.S. travel more difficult.

When he needs to protect his right flank, Rubio cites the strict conditions that the Helms-Burton law sets for full repeal of the embargo.

But Rubio knows that even under that law, the President can re-write Cuba travel and business regulations to make them more or less permissive. Plenty of voices were raised against Obama’s regulatory actions, but no one challenged his authority under the law to do so.

If the day comes when Trump wants more U.S. business activity in Cuba, that authority comes in very handy. He can license specific businesses deals such as, hypothetically, a U.S. sugar magnate’s project to cultivate 1,000 hectares of cane and to build a new mill. Or an investor’s decision to test Cuba’s new policy where, instead of working with a Cuban partner, he can simply rent a hotel for an agreed fee and run it himself. Or he can issue general authorizations for American companies to enter any category of business he specifies, such as investments in private businesses in Cuba.

Some are optimistic for a big, positive breakthrough. I confess that I see more that can go wrong than right, what with the deficiencies of Trump & Co. and the stasis of the glorioso partido that in recent years seems to be guiding its country nowhere.

A Cuban friend and I ended a conversation recently by agreeing in our hope that whatever comes be for the best, even though he doesn’t trust his president and I don’t trust mine.