We adverted, last week, to an editorial and substantial commentary in the New York Times directed towards advising President Obama to bring an end to the embargo on Cuba, and to begin a normalization of relations with that country. That the newspaper should editorially revert to this theme this week, must lead to speculation as to the reasons for what now appears to be the beginning of a campaign on this subject by a newspaper of substantial repute in the United States.
The Times has noted that when he first began campaigning for the presidency of the United States, the President had adopted the theme of normalization, but subsequently cooled on the issue as the campaign progressed. No doubt he became more sensitive to the political strength of the Cuban lobby. But the Times now indicates a favourable pointer, in addition to the fact that the President will not be running again and could therefore take the risk of initiating a new approach to the Cuban regime.
This pointer is that, according to public opinion polls, even among Cuban Americans, hostility to some degree of normalization is no longer a dominant sentiment, and that significant Cuban-American business persons have joined the normalization bandwagon, no doubt in anticipation of that fact that with a changing economic policy in Cuba they need to position themselves to take advantage of business opportunities in that country. And in addition, polls are also showing that the younger Cuban-Americans are also giving indications that they would not be averse to normalization.
The appeal for a reversal of policy comes at a time when two factors likely to influence policy in the short term may be significant in influencing whether the President feels he can move decisively on normalisation. The first is that assessments of American public opinion on Obama’s standing, in particular his decisiveness as a decision-maker and effective policy maker in external relations, are not particularly favourable to him. The population would appear to have been much influenced by his approach to events in the Middle East in particular, a geographical area which he had made much criticism of in respect of his predecessor George W. Bush’s policies.
Secondly, in spite of the fact that the American economy has, for the most part, recovered from the recession which Obama found when he became president, he does not seem to have gained much political credit for his policy actions in that respect. The American public would appear to be wary of the solidity of the economic recovery, and of the possibility that a resumption of growth, as seems to be indicated, would have a positive impact not simply on employment, but on wages.
The case for a normalization of relations with Cuba, initially through a removal of the economic embargo and its associated impediments, has also been recently reinforced by sentiment in the Hemisphere itself. Most leaders of Latin American states, joined by Caribbean governments, have become more forceful in calling for normalization, as indicated once again recently in statements at the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly. And as we observed last week, the Cuban government itself, through the mouth of Fidel Castro, has sought to magnify the justification for a new American policy by, as we have seen, himself putting pen to paper on the subject.
This internal Cuban push, magnified by the founder-leader of the Cuban Communist state, is obviously strengthening the position of other Latin American states, many of whom would appear to feel that, in many areas of policy towards Latin America, President Obama has not been as forthcoming as they might have anticipated.
The President’s effort of further harmonization of relations with Latin America has been, during his tenure, overshadowed by first, his famous commitment to a “pivot to Asia”, secondly by a forced turn to dealing more decisively with the Middle East where, at the beginning of his administration, his famous “Arab Spring” speech, he had suggested that the geopolitical arena was beginning to pivot itself to a normalization of politics more akin to some form of Western-recognised political democracy; and thirdly, by the unfortunate exposure of American spying, not only on third country governments, but on their leaders – in particular President Dilma Rousseff in Latin America and Chancellor Merkel in Europe.
The identification of Brazil as, so to speak, a victim of that policy, refers to derailed attempts by President Rousseff in particular, who had seemed to make a commitment to closer relations with the United States, given her country’s increasing status of one of the BRICS – emerging influentials in international political and economic decision-making.
So while, in fact, President Obama did try to take advantage, first, of the emergence of a substantially pro-American president in Mexico, he has found that that country’s’ weight cannot really be counterposed to that of Brazil in the wider Latin American environment, even as Mexico has sought, in recent years, to initiate, through the founding of CELAC, something of a counterweight to UNASUR.
And secondly, it became clear that Colombia, the site of the last Summit of the Americas, could not sustain regional pressure for a commitment to Cuba’s re-entry in the OAS-Summit of the Americas system, given its own preoccupation with a normalization of his country’s politics through a solution towards the FARC-initiated guerrilla war there.
President Obama has therefore, it appears, not felt it possible, or perhaps politically beneficial, over the years of his administration, to initiate a process, or find a formula within the Latin American sphere itself, for the re-engagement of Cuba in the Hemisphere. Perhaps given his commitment to the view that in the last analysis “all politics is local”, he has felt that sentiment towards normalization could not find reasonable majority support to influence the Congress without the expenditure of much political capital.
But if the New York Times is right, sentiment appears to be changing, though at a time however when the President’s political capital is not at its height; and in any case his preoccupation with a Middle East which he had always shown reluctance to engage, and the new challenges emerging in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, are too much to carry, while simultaneously taking up a Cuban charge as he fights to sustain minimum political support at the point of imminent departure from the Presidency.
In that setting too, as time grows nigh, the President will feel the necessity to more and more take into account the sentiments of emerging Democratic candidates for the Presidency, and in the states, on the issue. So given all that, we should soon see, in the short period that he has left, if he feels able to initiate some minimal steps that do not alienate Democratic supporters, even in a climate which, the polls suggest, is favourably changing the public’s attitude to Cuba.