Just two days after the House voted to normalize trade status with China, former United States diplomat to Cuba Wayne Smith argued the U.S. should normalize relations with Cuba as well, while speaking to a crowd of 50 people at the Rockefeller Center yesterday evening.
Although there might have been logic behind the United States policy during the Cold War, the continuing containment and sanctions against Cuba are now contrary and counterproductive to U.S. interests, Smith said.
According to Smith, those who argue for containment claim that Cuba's status as a communist nation is the reason for such a policy. He argued that this nation had normal relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and is on the way to normalized trade relations with China, on the grounds that the best way to deal with a communist country is through engagement.
Yet politicians still refuse to extend the same argument to Cuba, Smith said.
According to him many believe that China's economic reforms provided grounds for extending normalized trade relations. Yet Cuba also has made significant economic reforms, dating back to 1982.
"It's a very small gap, if at all," between the economic reforms made in Cuba and China, Smith said.
China also supplies nuclear arsenals to rogue states, something that Cuba no longer does, another point on which Cuba's record should thus be more favorably viewed by the United States, he said. While Smith did see "some rationale" in the policy of containment during the Cold War -- as Cuba was geographically very close to the United States -- he said such logic no longer holds now that the war is over.
If we look at what serves enlightened U.S. interests, Smith said, we will see that it does not involve continuing sanctions against Cuba.
If our country does not want Cubans fleeing to the U.S. for a greater economic livelihood, we should not continue "a policy of economic sanctions aimed at increasing economic distress" in Cuba, he said.
"If you want to let light into a country," the best way is through engagement, Smith argued. The best solution is to get rid of the embargo, thus indicating to Cubans that we understand the Cold War is over and are ready to begin an intelligent dialogue about our disagreements.
The "pain factor" is now the only rationale behind policy-maker's reluctance to lift the embargo. Historically, Smith said, Cuba was "a little island that used to do what we wanted it to do." But that all changed when Castro came to power, and if we normalize relations with the country now, it will appear as Castro "kicked us in the shins and got away with it."
Also, few Americans feel strongly enough either way on the issue to change their votes or political contributions because of action on the issue, while a "small and strident" group of Cubans in America actively lobby to keep the embargo, Smith said.
