On December 17, President Obama announced long awaited release of USAID contractor AlanGross from a Cuban prison. Gross, in Cuba to bring communications equipment to marginalized religious organizations, had been accused by Cuba of working for U.S. intelligence agencies and held captive since 2009. Gross was released alongside a U.S. intelligence agent in exchange for the members of the “Cuban Five” spy network remaining in American prisons, a swap Cuba had long desired and that Gross himself had endorsed. The release of the Cuban Five was met with outrage from much of the Cuban exile community, as the Five had been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the deaths of members of the “Brothers to the Rescue” activist group who flew Cuban raft migrants to safety on U.S. soil. In addition to the prisoner swap, a far more shocking announcement was made: the American and Cuban governments would be taking this opportunity to re-establish diplomatic relations after over five decades.
The unexpected policy shift has divided communities and political parties across the country. A poll conducted in the day following the announcement showed that the Cuban-American community is divided nearly evenly on the issue, with 44 percent supporting normalizing relations and 48 percent opposing. This difference plays out on a primarily generational level, with Cuban-born exiles opposing the policy shift 53 percent to 38 percent and their US-born descendants supporting it 64 percent to 33 percent. As a Cuban-American, I have had a chance to see this divide in my own family: an octogenarian member of my abuela’s generation emailed around photoshopped pictures of President Obama kissing Raul Castro with Spanish captions condemning the change as a giveaway to the regime, while my mother and others in her generation who emigrated very young have expressed their optimism that opening up to the Cuban people might open the path to political change. Personally, I agree with the younger generation, but the concerns of older Cubans that this reset may merely strengthen the Castros should not be dismissed lightly.
As with all things, stark differences in opinion have manifested themselves in the political arena as well. Unlike most issues, however, the division cuts across party lines. Several high profile Democrats, like Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), as well as Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), have come out strongly against the President’s new policy. Other Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, are supportive of the move, as are a number of Republicans including Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the latter of whom went to Cuba to retrieve Mr. Gross at the request of the administration.
Detractors of Mr. Obama’s proposal voice many legitimate concerns: that the policy shift did not ask the Castros to make any move towards democracy or that the reset is rooted in the President’s view—widely dismissed as naïve—that simply talking to dictators will improve things, but these concerns do not themselves detract from the correctness of this course of action. For decades, the Castro brothers have used the American embargo and the specter of “Yanqui” imperialism as a scapegoat for the failures of communist economics and a justification for the restrictions on free speech and other human rights abuses committed by the regime.
With the Cold War over, the international support that would have been needed to fully isolate Cuba and coerce policy changes has evaporated, and with it any rationale for maintaining our current policy of embargo and non-interaction. Sanctions against regime officials and the Cuban military remain justified, but the blanket restrictions today serve only to impoverish the Cuban people and validate the delusional worldview of a decrepit dictatorship. Removing barriers to trade and the free flow of information from our side of the Straits of Florida will make it clear to the Cuban people and the world that the Castros, and not America, are to blame for the suffering and oppression on the island. A free flow of goods and ideas would also expose ordinary Cubans to the free and prosperous society that their brethren in Miami and elsewhere enjoy, and could spark the same desire for reform that the people behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe felt 30 years ago.
With the rhetoric of the Castro brothers and the history of the fall of communism elsewhere in the world in mind, statements from many who oppose Obama’s policy shift, especially from Senator Rubio, are puzzling. In an interview on Fox News, Rubio said, “This notion that somehow being able to travel more to Cuba, to sell more consumer products, the idea that’s going to lead to some democratic opening is absurd.” This sentiment, at best, shows an ignorance of the influence that American cultural ideals have had on promoting freedom around the world when spread by economic interactions, and at worst betrays a cynicism for America’s ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas.
Around the world, people have been inspired to strive for freedom by American films and music and the allure of American goods. Even in modern dictatorships, American cultural products are widely coveted, often creating headaches for local officials when they support subversive ideas. Provided that the regime doesn’t act to block trade from their side, opening the doors to travel to and trade with Cuba will only lead to greater levels of cultural interaction. When pitted against dictatorship and communism, the values promoted by American cultural products will win every time. That Rubio and other purported believers in the good kind of American exceptionalism either don’t realize or don’t believe that that’s true is profoundly disappointing.
For the 11 million residents of Cuba to prosper and be free, the Castro regime must end. 5 decades of a unilateral American embargo have failed to provide the pressure needed to destroy the dictatorship, and it is high time to try a new tack. If the Cuban dictatorship is giving us an opportunity to open our markets to them, we should seize it. If the goods flow, ideas will too, and in the marketplace of ideas, freedom will always win.