Could the US relax relations with Cuba as it has done with Vietnam? (This LA Times article points out how Vietnam has become economically successful and how the US now trades with Vietnam.)
If so , how? If not, why not?
If you don’t want to register with the LA Times (it’s free), the summary of the article is:
Not as long as Castro is alive, no. The deal between the U.S. and Cuba is almost entirely personal.
However, I’m willing to bet that the instant the bearded one dies, American tropical resort entrepaneurs and cigar importers will descend upon Havanah like a swarm of locusts. I’d say that a “trial period of trade relations” will be offered by Washington no more than a month after the funeral.
So Castro would not want to “thrive” economically as Vientnam has? Has he said this? What is the difference between Vietnam and Cuba?
No, it’s not Castro (who would probably love to trade with the U.S.) - Washington will not open relations with Cuba so long as Castro is still in charge.
The difference between Vietnam in Cuba is that Ho Chi Min died in 1969 and Castro didn’t.
The small but very influential Cuban community in Miami will never allow normal relations with Cuba as long as Castro is alive. Remember the hysteria over Elian Gonzalez?
There is a Vietnamese community in Orange County, which is arguably equally as influencial–or might be, given more time. Wasn’t there a near riot there about some video store owner who put up a Vietnamese flag, or a picture of Ho Chi Min, or something?
Well, he’s gotta die sometime. When he does, will the embargo end? Regardless of who takes over?
Perhaps. It would be more likely if Cuba would show a willingness to abandon its unacceptable human rights positions, and adopt the standards of our allies Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia.
The Cuban embargo will continue as long as Florida remains nearly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. As long as that situation is intact, neither party can risk alienated that part of the Cuban-American community in Miami which basically votes on a single issue.
True. OTOH, we have a Cuban-American community here in Tampa which predates Castro’s revolution by decades (their ancestors came here in the early 20th Century to work in the cigar factories of Ybor City), and they are much more ambivalent about the embargo. Former Mayor Dick Greco actually visited Cuba in 2002 to discuss future trade possibilities, and while it aroused some local furor (http://www.sptimes.com/2002/07/31/TampaBay/Greco_s_Cuba_trip_bre.shtml), it was not all one-sided, the way it would have been if the mayor of Miami had done the same.
The difference, I guess, is that Tampa Cubans came here voluntarily for economic opportunities, they’ve been here almost a century and they think of themselves as Americans. Many of the Miami Cubans (at least, those old enough to remember pre-Castro Cuba, and possibly some of their children) still think of themselves as Cuban exiles or expatriates. Some of them still dream of going “home” someday. Which is preposterous, of course. Perhaps they can go to Cuba, but they can’t go home. The Cuba they left in 1959 (with its white-skinned elite, privately-owned sugar plantations and Mob-owned casinos) no longer exists and never will again, no matter what comes after Castro. And no future Cuban government, whatever its form or ideology, is ever going to honor their claims to property Castro expropriated from them or from their parents. I wish they would just accept that.
Maybe it’s the proximity.
Good point. The Vietnamese community in Orange County will never change the electoral college vote of California.
It’s an interesting situation: Because of the electoral college (and personalities) one nation “thrives” and another doesn’t.