True. However, there are reasons not to. They live in South Florida and they vote and they vote very loudly.
What Acid Lamp said. I don’t see what good it does the Cuban emigre community anyway, regardless of how they vote.
Is there any other country that doesn’t have normal relations with Cuba now?
I’m not sure what ‘normal relations’ means, exactly, but if you mean support a continued embargo I think Israel (if they are still doing it) is the only big one. IIRC, there were a few island nations that still supported it when it came up in 2007, but just about everyone else supported the UN denunciation of the US embargo.
Of course, just because we have an embargo doesn’t mean there is no trade…IIRC, the US exports over a billion dollars in agricultural goods and services to Cuba annually.
The thing is that we can all sit here and say that it’s stupid and that the US should get rid of the embargo, but really to most Americans it’s just not a big priority, so most politicians aren’t going to do much about it. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow and all that.
-XT
Yep, we’ve been down this road more than twice. 
So latest verse, same as the others: if logic had anything to do with it, we’d have normalized relations with Cuba about the same time as we did with Vietnam. It’s all about the votes of the few hardcore anti-Castro types left, and they only count because Florida’s a swing state. If they lived in Alabama, nobody would give a flying fuck about them. (Just one more reason why the EC is stooopid: it magnifies the votes of some, and makes meaningless the votes of others, for no good reason on God’s green earth.)
I think it’s gotten to a point, though, where even they don’t matter much. I suspect the children and grandchildren of the Cuban emigres largely don’t think a continued embargo is going to help their long-lost relatives in Cuba, but getting rid of the embargo might.
I think “normal relations” means each country at least has their own embassies and ambassadors in the other along with the usual things that are part and parcel for diplomatic relations.
Getting back to my OP, I notice so far there’s unanimous consensus that there should be normal diplomatic relations between the US. and Cuba. However, is there anybody out there who thinks otherwise and can explain why?
This thread makes me think of greeting cards. “Embargo, when you don’t care enough to normalize relations.”
I don’t disagree with the consensus, but I think there’s an aspect that isn’t being considered that just makes it unrealistic.
There’s really no point in doing so when there is such fundamental hostility in the relationship. If diplomatic relations were normalized tomorrow, it would just be a matter of (a probably very short) time before Cuba expelled the U.S. diplomats for one reason or another, likely something to do with Cuban dissidents.
The fundamental lack of trust and the animosity means that neither party wants to grant diplomatic immunity and allow a greater degree of access and freedom of movement to the other party’s representatives. There’s a long history of bad faith actions on both sides.
Speaking strictly of the respective governments - not their people - neither side really has much to gain by expanding the relationship beyond it’s current form. Indeed, it’s possible that changing the status quo could lead to increased confrontation and possibly an even more hostile relationship.
It seems to me that once the Castros are gone, Cuba will decide what direction it wants to take in that new era, and based on that the relationship can then be realistically reevaluated. Until then, it just seems to be a hopeless cause.
The idea that our relations are worse with Cuba than they are with countries like Pakistan, Libya, Sudan, Syria, or several other countries just isn’t true.
The fact is that if a diplomatic presence were approved by both parties, immunity would have to apply. It is law, and immunity is part and parcel of establishing a diplomatic presence.
In short, the idea that establishing diplomatic relations would make tensions between our countries go up is just baseless supposition. And so what if they did? What, you think Cuba is going to go to war with the United States?
It’s not that our relationship with Cuba is fundamentally worse than it is with other countries. It’s that since the U.S. serves as a useful boogieman for Castro, there isn’t any realistic hope for the relationship to improve. And if there’s no hope for an improvement, the only other result of a change to the status quo is increased tensions. Not that any further tensions will lead to war, but why bother increasing tensions when there’s little to gain in the first place?
The overwhelmingly likely result of any further engagement is the bolstering of Castro’s portrayal of the U.S. as a boogieman to his people. It seems prudent to avoid fueling that fire and waiting for the rapidly approaching day that the Cuban people might make their own assessment as to what their relationship with the U.S. should be.
For one thing, it might mean a situation where Florida’s very well-organized and heavily-subsidized and tariff-protected sugar growers would have to compete with Cuban sugar.
I’m good with that…especially if we get rid of ALL of the various subsidies. I’m guessing that it would make more than just the growers unhappy, but I’m all for it. I just wouldn’t hold my breath for all this to happen. Sadly, I’ll probably die of old age before I can get Cuban cigars at my local shop.
-XT
There is no way that closer engagement would make the US more of a boogeyman. If US tourists are going to Havana like our Canadian and European counterparts, spending lots of money, and US goods are hitting Cuban shelves, that can only make the US more attractive in the eyes of Cubans. Engagement is the opposite of tension, not the catalyst. By opening US-Cuban relations, we do an end-run around the government’s propaganda, not feed it.
I’m doubting also that Cuba will make any reparations towards those who lost their property in Castro’s revolution. To the best of my knowledge, Russia has not compensated those who lost their holdings as a result of the 1917 revolution (or their descendants), and I doubt that any Taiwanese (or their descendants) can claim against China for repayment of their holdings lost in 1949. And in a more practical, perhaps common-sensical approach, I cannot see a Cuban, who has lived and worked on a particular piece of land for ages, being told to clear out because it is being returned to somebody (or somebody’s descendants) who hasn’t been around for fifty-plus years. I think an argument could be made that the Cuban’s sweat equity in that land counts for something. It may not be to the liking of expatriate Cubans in Florida and elsewhere, but given the Russian and Taiwanese experiences, and the fact that those who stayed may have a better claim in 2011 than those who left in 1959, I don’t think they will get anything.
Interestingly, the Cubans have made reparations to Canadian companies whose assets were seized after 1959. I was able to dig up this cite. Although the deal occurred in 1998, and apparently took years of negotiation, it does indicate that normal diplomatic relations, such as have always existed between Canada and Cuba, can lead to reparations being made. Of course, whether US-Cuban relations are too poisoned right now to have the same result, is another question; but the point remains: Cuba has made reparations for assets seized. If anybody, or any company, in the United States is looking for reparations of any sort somewhere in the future, then it would seem to me that normalizing diplomatic relations as soon as possible would be a good first step.
Spot on.
Just thought you should know that this thread inspired me to go out and get some Cuban food for dinner tonight.
Thank you all.