It is Time to Normalize Relations with Cuba

I was in the third grade at Shepherd Park Elementary School in Washington DC in October of 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened. I remember it clearly because that month we began practicing “duck and cover” air raid drills every day. In these drills, we ducked under our wooden desks and were told to stay there until the all-clear alarm had been sounded. For an 8-year-old, I had no idea how close we as a nation were to nuclear destruction.

That was over 60 years ago. For most of that time, with a brief period when President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro with the assistance of Pope Francis negotiated a deal to begin to restore full diplomatic relationships with Cuba, the United States has imposed a devastating and destructive embargo on the Cuban people. One of the first things former President Donald Trump did was throw a bone to the Cuban exile community in South Florida by reversing the Obama 2014 Executive Order. During the time of the Executive Order, Cuban-Americans could remit money to their families in Cuba. Americans could vacation in Cuba. And American investors could begin making investments in the largest Caribbean Island that before the 1959 Cuban Revolution had a per-capita income that was greater than the per-capita income of Ireland or New Zealand.

Our Bay of Pigs fiasco, the following embargo, and the missile crisis began a long downward slide in the Cuban economy and Cuban society. This was compounded when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 leaving Cuba without its primary lifeline.

Following these events, the weakness of a planned economy became glaringly clear. Production of agricultural products, including sugar, declined. Long lines and inefficiencies were everywhere. Black markets developed to fill the gap but were insufficient to meet the needs of the people. Corruption of government officials and ordinary Cubans was rampant. Cubans got on rickety rafts and attempted to cross the 90-mile journey to U.S. shores. Many Cubans died attempting the dangerous crossing.

One of the biggest debates taking place right now is regarding our immigration policy. I have yet to hear anyone make the connection between the Trump restoration of the embargo, and President Joe Biden’s decision not to return to the Obama-era policy and the exponential growth of Cuban migrants at the United States southern border.

According to the Washington Office on Latin America, the number of Cuban nationals encountered at the southern border has increased from 13,410 in 2020 to a staggering 220,908 in 2022. Several factors have led to this increase, but the return of the embargo and resulting economic consequences of these restrictions is one of the primary factors. After Trump reinstated the embargo, 400 offices of Western Union, the leading firm processing remittances from the U.S. to Cuba, shut their doors. Remittances were a major source of foreign exchange for Cubans allowing them to purchase much needed goods and services in markets where the Cuban peso could not be used.

We made our points. Castro was bad. Planned economies do not work. Russian missiles 90 miles from our border will not be allowed. It is time for the Biden Administration and Congress to normalize relations with Cuba, not just for the economic stability and well-being of Cubans in Cuba, but because it is in our national interest as the immigration numbers continue to grow. A quarter of a million Cubans would not be crossing the Mexican border if they had opportunities to work and thrive in their own country.

I understand why Biden has not reinstated the Obama-era Cuban policy on U.S. domestic political grounds. He has extraordinarily little chance of convincing the generation of Cuban-Americans who came here in the 1960s to vote for him. His tacit support for the embargo will not help him with this group of voters. They are dyed in the wool determined to destroy the Cuban people on the island with our assistance.

Normalization with Cuba would bring capital to a society that is crumbling into the ocean like the 1956 Chevrolets that serve as taxis on the Malecon. American tourist dollars could help transform this economy to what it once was — the jewel of the Carribean.

It is unlikely President Biden would lift the embargo before the election, but if he is reelected and Congress does not want to make the normalization permanent, he should issue his own executive order normalizing relationships with Cuba.

The United States consumer and investor can have a bigger impact on internal Cuban politics than our failed 60-year embargo policy has achieved. If we can agree that democracy and human rights are good for Cubans, we should be able to agree it is time to normalize relationships with Cuba.