President Trump is expected this Friday to reverse the Obama administration's policy of opening up political and economic relations with Cuba. Thanks in part to the advocacy of Florida's Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, America will likely return to a policy that allows us to exert our political, moral, and economic strength to push for freedom and human rights in an authoritarian regime just a hundred miles from America's shores.
It has already been over half a year since Fidel Castro passed away at age 90 as a seemingly out-of-place historical icon, with a peace that few of his victims knew. Just like when Venezuela's Hugo Chavez passed away in 2013 or North Korea's Kim Jong-Il in 2011, there was briefly a flash of hope that this would be an opportunity for the repressive police state and command economy to finally unravel itself.
Yet Cuba continues to remain an authoritarian regime that has little room for freedom of any kind, whether political, economic, religious, or otherwise. For America to reward a regime that has steadfastly refused to move in the direction of freedom with sudden political and economic legitimacy would be a surrender of the moral struggle we've waged with Cuba for the past half-century.
Proponents of President Obama's Cuba-opening policy cite precedent in how America has regularly established relations with authoritarian regimes, including Communist ones such as China and Vietnam and otherwise. Proponents further cite the theory that increased interrelation pushes authoritarian nations to slowly edge towards human rights and international cooperation.
Yet it would be difficult to back up such claims with historical examples. Nations such as Vietnam and China are deeply immersed in the world economic system, yet their human rights abuses continue just as frequently as before. In fact, often our ability to condemn such abuses becomes limited because of how deep our economic interrelation now is with them.
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05.03.2024