U.S. takes backward step on Cuba
Trump, catering to elderly Cubans in Miami, has just reinstated a Cuba policy that has been an abject failure for 50 years
Two years ago, in an executive order, former U.S. President Barack Obama greatly expanded the right of Americans to engage in commerce and travel to Cuba.
Reacting to the change, about 200,000 American tourists went there during the first year, with many more expected in subsequent years.
Thousands of Cubans responded by opening private businesses to cater to this expected rise in visitors. Thousands more have listed rooms in their apartments for tourist use.
Friends of mine who recently spent two weeks in several Cuban cities report that you now see private businesses (restaurants, beauty parlors, various shops and the like) on every block.
One could not hope for a greater opening of the Cuban people to contact and interact with people from democratic nations.
Yet President Donald Trump, in an obvious appeal to senior Cuban hardliners living in Miami (whose votes enabled him to carry Florida in the national election), has now issued a countermanding order revoking the Obama initiative and returning American-Cuban relations to the hostilities of the past. A policy that was an abject failure, accomplishing nothing, has now been re-established. President Raul Castro of Cuba, who has announced he will retire at the end of this year, will now undoubtedly be replaced by a political hardliner turning to help from China and Russia, and we will all return to a state of senseless conflict.
Americans are encouraged to visit China, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, but not Cuba.
As is the case with many of Trump’s executive orders, the language in his Cuban pronouncement is ambiguous and self-contradictory. We will need to wait for the Treasury and Commerce departments to supply specific details.
Yet from the general tone of the order, it appears that individual tourism to Cuba will be totally abolished, and people wanting to travel alone will be made to join a group led by a tour leader, who will be required to insist that the group follows a precise hour-by-hour itinerary of totally artificial encounters with Cuban “actors.”
arthur Frommer is the pioneering founder of the Frommer’s travel guide book series. He co-hosts the radio program, “the travel show,” with his travel correspondent daughter Pauline Frommer. Find more destinations online and read arthur Frommer’s blog at frommers.com.