This gets brought up periodically, but now that Castro is dead and a new U.S. President will be in office, it would seem a good time to advocate for it.
I wish there were currently some free Cubans who possessed the property rights to use it to its best value and that the base could be given to them, but there are no such. Paradoxically, then, I think the fastest way to get to that point is to give it back to the current Cuban govt. Just like only Nixon could go to China, only the Real Estate Mogul can give away land. Trump, the “world’s greatest negotiator”, should just give it back, without negotiating any concessions regarding political freedom. He should of course talk a lot about that, and in the future do what we can for the Cubans, but I think it would make an impact for him, especially him, to just say “This land is Cuban. It belongs to the Cubans, and is a separate issue from all of the horrors of the Communists”.
I don’t think a lot of successful major international initiatives are based on “Hey, we are going to do something really nice for you with no expectation of payback but we hope things will work out for the best anyway.” Even the Marshall Plan wasn’t are naive as what’s been proposed (I think, its not exactly a very concrete plan) in the OP.
Okay, so let’s assume we cancel the lease and bug out of Cuba. Here’s the elephant in the room: What do we do with the foreign combatants still detained there? No other country wants them, and Cuba sure as hell won’t accept them.
The best case scenario is that the Tenant of Gitmo would assist the Cuban people. And the Cubanos would like the tenant.
Since the rent checks are cashed, the tenant is occupying the base rent free. Maybe if the tenant threw some beans and rice over the fence everyone could get along.
If that can’t happen, then the tenant should leave.
There’s little strategic need for Guantanamo as a naval base at this point, and it does have a lot of political detritus around it, but I see no real reason to give anything to Cuba for nothing in return.
I think it’s more likely that Trump would try and annex the whole island than to undo the lease (we don’t own Gitmo…it’s already Cuban land and belongs to the Cubans). Whatever else he is, he is definitely a real estate and land lord mogul, so it seems pretty unlikely he’s going to just give up the lease without some concessions from Cuba…maybe not even then, since to him the fact that Cuba isn’t even cashing the checks would make this a lease he could only dream about in his own business dealings.
Well, now we are departing the realm of “fantasyland Trump policies” to the domain of “Trump must be on acid and DMT at the same time because the ideas here have no contact whatsoever with Trump’s version of reality” because Trump has said that he wants to fill up the Guantanamo prison, not dispatch it.
In any case, Congress just passed a law in September which appears to prohibit returning Guantanamo to Cuba. The idea that Trump might return Guantanamo is clearly “No, he won’t,” but I still think a debate on whether he should would be interesting.
Incorrect. While there are a few national security experts who question its value, I think it is safe to say that the conventional wisdom is that Guantanamo remains a valuable base even aside from the detention operations.
So say Raoul Castro reads this thread and says, “Yeah, to get MH on board we have to buy out the lease. Okay, maybe if each impoverished Cuban ponies up $1, the gringos will go. $12M. What do you say?” The Master Negotiator sends his Disciples. TEN TIMES AS MUCH! Wow, $10/Cuban. Ok, says Raoul, none of it comes out of my stash. Congratulations Americans, an extra 35 cents per person off your tax bill this year!
The nothing we would get in return is a massive amount of good will, satisfaction at doing the right thing, and self-righteousness when influencing other such actions around the world. We spend plenty of blood and treasure trying to get these things in other ways.
Why is your approach better than holding out for a identifiable benefit? Like, “the US will return Guantanamo after the second free and fair national election in Cuba as determined by some UN commission.”
ETA: I’m not suggesting that’s likely to happen, but it would seem to make more sense.
