{"id":289538,"date":"2023-10-04T10:02:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T14:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=289538"},"modified":"2023-10-12T13:25:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T17:25:03","slug":"cuba-u-s-relations-four-signs-and-one-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/cuba-u-s-relations-four-signs-and-one-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba-U.S. relations: four signs and one event"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relations between Cuba and the United States are plagued by paradoxes. There are many of us in Cuba who dedicate ourselves to analyzing their progress, whether for work or study reasons or simply because we are conscious citizens, who know the influence they have on our lives. Many times, things happen that escape public scrutiny or that are difficult to unravel because the signals can be very ambiguous.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been analyzing them since I can remember. Initially as a restless young man dissatisfied with the state of affairs prevailing before 1959. I wanted to see Cuba free and independent but with minimally normal relations with its northern neighbor. Over time, it became part of my job, when I was a Cuban diplomat and, later, a university professor and researcher. It has been said, and I have no reason to deny it, that my most obvious professional specialty is being a specialist in Cuban-U.S. relations. In fact, I have written three books about it, the most recent, <\/span>Diplomacia imperial y Revoluci\u00f3n<\/i><\/b><\/a> (Imperial Diplomacy and Revolution), was published in digital format in December of last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

During these more than 60 years I remember many cases in which reality hid deeper truths. Probably one of the most contradictory stages was the one that took place between 2008 and 2014 before Ra\u00fal Castro and Barack Obama adopted the historic D17 agreements. I wrote a short text about that in 2009 that I titled \u201c<\/span>Cuba en Obama, Obama en Cuba<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps because I never thought I would live to see it, I experienced with emotion the announcement of December 17, 2014, the date on which Ra\u00fal Castro and Barack Obama<\/a> announced the promising agreement that began the short period of normalization, under which the diplomatic relations were reestablished. Likewise, I was stimulated by the subsequent rapprochement process, including Barack Obama\u2019s visit to Havana. I also watched with apprehension the increasing deterioration of the process during the Donald Trump years. In 2016, while closely observing the presidential election campaign, I was convinced, as I wrote for <\/span>OnCuba<\/b> in October of that year, that <\/span>\u201ca Donald Trump administration would be extremely detrimental to the United States, to the world, and to Cuba and the Cubans.\u201d<\/span><\/a> Unfortunately, I was not wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

I confess that I was very disappointed that Joe Biden did not fulfill his campaign promises and maintained Trump\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d policy. <\/span>As I told Agence France Press in July 2021<\/span><\/a>, the president \u201chas evidently disappointed many [in Cuba] who expected, not that he would return to [Barack] Obama\u2019s policies, but that he would reverse the harshest and crudest measures of [his Republican predecessor Donald] Trump.\u201d I have not changed that assessment, even though since that date the administration has made some minor changes to the policy it inherited from his Republican predecessor. Trump\u2019s essential decisions have been maintained under Joe Biden, including putting Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not pointless to emphasize that in its actions in recent years, the Cuban government has done nothing to justify what happened since 2017, which included a cruel intensification of unilateral coercive measures, even in the midst of the COVID pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

This introduction, more or less long, is necessary because, as will be seen, I will analyze the implications of four signs and one event that occurred in the last fifteen days in relations between both countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The signs are:<\/span><\/p>\n