In the fall of 2005 the National Intelligence Council of the CIA added Cuba to its secret list of 25 allegedly unstable countries where U.S. intervention might be required.1 This move followed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s appointment in July of Caleb McCarry as coordinator of the U.S. effort “to hasten the end of the dictatorship in Cuba.”2
These recent measures and sharp rhetoric may be no more than the sort of mostly symbolic crumbs presidents have tossed to hardliners in the Cuban-American community for at least a quarter-century; a little payback to a constituency that solidly backed both campaigns of President George W. Bush. But U.S. policy towards Cuba is rooted in geopolitical considerations well beyond merely satisfying a domestic constituency. Cuba has once again emerged as a foreign policy concern of U.S. national security managers, and they have turned to an old stratagem of containment and isolation to address the perceived problem.
At the start of the 1990s, with the disappearance of the Soviet Union and Cuban President Fidel Castro’s announcement that his country would cease supporting armed struggle in the Third World, President George H.W. Bush began viewing Cuba as a domestic rather than an international problem and turned the policy reins over to Congress. There, virulent anti-Castro demagogues held sway, supported and often instigated by likeminded lobbyists and activists. The clout of this lobby in the legislature—and in the executive after the 2000 election—has been seen as the main source of a hostile U.S. policy.
More recently, however, U.S. policy towards Cuba has received declining support from the general public, younger Cuban-Americans and U.S. companies eager to trade with the island. In fact, majorities in both the House and Senate have demonstrated they are no longer afraid to challenge the anti-Castro lobby and have voted to modify several components of the U.S. embargo. Commerce seems to be trumping anti-Communism as the interests of Midwestern farmers increasingly overshadow those of the Florida ideologues.3
From this perspective, anti-Castro hardliners in the Bush Administration are faced with a “now or never” situation. The increasing stridency of U.S. policy reflects their desperation in making a last ditch attempt to overthrow the revolutionary Cuban regime. It is the final gasp of a dying policy, because as the older generation of exiles fades away, the seemingly “irrational” U.S. policy would follow them to the grave.4
By late summer 2003, right-wing Cuban-Americans were feeling betrayed. They had helped deliver Florida’s electoral votes to George W. Bush and believed they had gotten too little in return—despite the appointments of anti-Castro activists to key posts in the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Defense Department and the National Security Council. The Administration had also denounced the Cuban government rhetorically and backed resolutions condemning Cuba at the UN Commission on Human Rights; cut off semi-annual talks with Cuba on immigration; increased funding for dissident groups on the island; and directed the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to provoke the government’s ire by openly supporting these groups.5 But like Bill Clinton before him, Bush had waived Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which allows U.S. nationals to sue over property nationalized by the Revolution, and his other moves seemed more symbolic than substantive. Faced with growing dissatisfaction in October 2003 from a small but aggressive segment of his electoral base, Bush offered this faction the promise of a major initiative against Cuba: the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. He mandated the Commission “to identify ways to hasten the arrival of that day” when “Castro’s regime is no more.”6
The outline of the new policy became clearly evident in the “Report to the President” released in May 2004 by the Commission. The last five chapters of the 500-page report describe a post-Castro, U.S.-governed transition to a market democracy. As Wayne Smith, the former chief of the U.S. Interests Section, mockingly observed, the detailed plans lay out how the firm hand of the United States would guide Cuba’s transition by “setting up the right kind of schools, making sure the trains run on time and all such matters. We can be sure that contracts for Bechtel and Halliburton are already planned.”7
Appropriately, few analysts examined these pie-in-the-sky ideas. Attention focused on the first chapter—“Hastening Cuba’s Transition”—because it contained policy proposals endorsed by the President that would take effect immediately. These included: restrictions on family visits, so that Cuban-Americans would be able to return to the island only once every three years and would be allowed to spend no more than $50 per day on lodging and food; restrictions on remittances, so that U.S. citizens would be permitted to send money only to immediate family members in Cuba; restrictions on educational travel, so that U.S. colleges and universities would be licensed only for programs lasting at least 10 weeks; increased funds for political opponents of the regime inside Cuba and for U.S.-based programs designed to support dissidents; and stepped-up propaganda efforts, using U.S. military aircraft to transmit Radio and TV Martí broadcasts to Cuba.8
The month after the report’s release, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued sweeping regulations that flowed from the Commission’s recommendations. The new rules quickly led to significant reductions in travel by Cuban-Americans and by religious or humanitarian groups. More than 300 U.S. colleges and universities shut down their academic programs in Cuba.9 Marazul Charters, one of the largest providers of licensed travel between the United States and Cuba, reports U.S. travelers to Cuba declined by 80% from 2003 to 2005.10 Similarly, the number of religious or humanitarian groups traveling to the island has fallen in the past two years from 160 to 20, cutting humanitarian aid and assistance to Cuba by an estimated $6 million.11 In addition, OFAC stepped-up its enforcement of the travel ban. In all of 2004, it imposed 392 fines against individuals, but as of mid-October 2005, it had imposed 587 individual fines, already an increase of almost 50%.12
There is little doubt that the Treasury’s May 2004 regulations and the tougher enforcement of previous rules have hurt Cuba, but the long-term significance of these measures is less clear. In the U.S. context, several observers have suggested that the draconian rules may ultimately contribute to the embargo’s unraveling, because they anger younger Cuban-Americans who want to travel more frequently to the island, as well as others who want to send remittances to aunts, uncles and non-family members. The travel restrictions even prompted a group of exiles to form the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights, whose mission is “to preserve the integrity of the Cuban family and work to defeat those who want to divide it.”
Interestingly, the negative reaction by the exile community came as no surprise to Bush Administration officials, who were urged to pressure the Commission not to recommend restrictions on travel or remittances by exiles. Joe Garcia, a former head and current board member of the Cuban American National Foundation, asserted that the President’s action undermined the unity of the Cuban-American community. “It divides our base,” he said. “It’s not in his political best interest to divide a community whose support for President Bush makes Crawford, Texas, look like enemy territory.”13 That a politically astute administration would risk fracturing this key constituency suggests that the policy aims transcended the President’s domestic political considerations. This points to the restoration of an antagonistic policy towards Cuba, rather than its disappearance.
Congressional bipartisan approval for increasing trade with Cuba and limiting the enforcement mechanisms of the embargo suggests the Bush Administration is running out of supporters for its tough Cuba policy. Yet major anti-embargo legislative initiatives were scuttled in 2003 by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) legislative machinations. When differing House and Senate versions of the Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill went to conference for reconciliation, each version contained an identical Cuba amendment preventing the use of Treasury funds to enforce Cuba travel restrictions or travel-related transactions. Typically, a conference committee does not even look at provisions in a bill on which both chambers have agreed. But after DeLay surreptitiously removed it during conference consideration, the amendment, which would have in effect lifted the travel ban, “disappeared into the Congressional ether,” Republican Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming caustically commented. In 2005 DeLay killed a series of amendments that would have eased embargo restrictions related to educational travel, gifts and family visits to Cuba.14 But with DeLay’s own future in question since his indictment by a Texas grand jury in October 2005, embargo supporters lost an effective inside strategist.
Meanwhile, with the steady growth of U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba since 2001, the Administration found itself fending off another congressional offensive. In 2004 Cuba bought $401 million worth of U.S. agricultural products, up from $259 million in 2003. But from January to August 2005, U.S. food sales to Cuba dropped by 22% compared to the same period the year before.15 The main cause for the drop was a February 2005 Treasury Department ruling requiring that Cuba pay for food shipments before they leave a U.S. port. Previously, Cuba had paid for agricultural goods after inspecting the shipment while in transit, or upon its arrival to the island. In an effort to force the Treasury Department to back down from its restriction, Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana held up consideration of several Treasury Department nominations. He relented in July 2005 after the Treasury promised to modify the rule.16
Although the Bush Administration lost this particular battle, the fight itself indicates the President is determined to press on aggressively against Cuba despite pressures from agricultural exporters. Moreover, the loss of DeLay was not a fatal blow to the Administration’s hostile Cuba policy, which now relies on Cuban-American Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (a Florida Republican, who gained a key leadership post on the House Rules Committee in January 2005) and on newly elected Republican Senator Mel Martinez (also of Florida and the first Cuban-American to hold a seat in the upper chamber).
Certainly some of the u.s. enmity towards cuba is posturing, designed as in the past to appease hard-line Cuban-Americans, but the renewed emphasis in 2005 on promoting democracy in Cuba—essentially code words for regime change—go beyond the usual symbolic handouts to Miami extremists. The post of Cuba Transition Coordinator, a person whose sole responsibility in the State Department is to plan the overthrow of the Cuban government, remained empty for over a year after the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba recommended its creation. In announcing Caleb McCarry’s appointment as Transition Coordinator, Secretary Rice strikingly described the position as “the keystone of our strategy” to “accelerate the demise of Castro’s tyranny.” A reliable conservative, McCarry was in charge of a USAID-funded, quasi-private “democracy” promotion program in Guatemala in the late 1980s and later worked on the Republican staff of the House International Relations Committee.
McCarry’s point man in Cuba is Michael Parmly, the new chief of the U.S. Interests Section, who replaced the abrasive and ineffectual James Cason last September. Parmly is a seasoned diplomat with significant experience in attempting to create market democracies in post-conflict situations. He served as the senior U.S. advisor involved in organizing the 2004 elections in Afghanistan and was Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, tasked with implementing the Dayton Accords. In naming a highly regarded professional with Parmly’s background, the Bush Administration indicated its serious commitment to challenging the legitimacy of the Cuban government and engineering a transition.
Parmly also has much more money at his disposal than his predecessor, thanks to a $59 million budget allocation earmarked for Cuban transition efforts. This is a whopping increase of $50 million from the year before. USAID doles out some of the money to the anti-Castro lobby in the United States, but significant amounts are spent inside Cuba, on programs designated to: “build solidarity with democratic activists”; “give voice to independent journalists”; “help develop independent Cuban nongovernmental organizations”; “[provide] direct outreach to the Cuban people.”17
The Bush Administration has tried to avoid interactions with Cuba that might be misinterpreted as a diminution of its hostility. For example, in the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Castro offered the services of 1,100 Cuban doctors to the stricken areas, a number he soon raised to 1,586. Washington made no official reply to the offer. Even Senator Martinez decried the lengths to which the Administration would go to demonstrate its hostility towards Cuba. “If we need doctors,” he said, “and Cuba offers them and they provide good service, of course we should accept them, and we’re grateful for that offer.”18
From Cuba’s perspective, the most egregious recent provocation has been the U.S. government’s harboring of Luis Posada Carriles, a convicted international terrorist known to have been involved in the 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner that killed all 73 people on board [See, “A Safe Harbor...” p. 16].
In May 2005 he turned up in Miami, asking for political asylum. Bush seemed to be faced with the choice of angering Cuban-Americans if he sent Posada to Venezuela, which had demanded the terrorist be extradited, or of vitiating his bold declarations on terrorism, such as his infamous dictum: “If you harbor a terrorist, if you aid a terrorist, if you hide terrorists, you’re just as guilty as the terrorists.”19 The President chose to leave Posada dangling in limbo, languishing in a Texas jail until late September 2005, when a federal judge ruled that he could not be extradited to either Venezuela or Cuba, because both countries allegedly practice torture.
The explanation for Bush’s behavior in this case may simply be that he bowed to the demands of those Cuban-Americans who see Luis Posada Carriles as a hero. But given how central the “War on Terrorism” is to the President’s overall foreign policy agenda, he stood to benefit much more from affirming his anti-terrorist credentials than from placating Cuban exiles. An alternative explanation is that by harboring Posada, the Bush Administration sends a chilling message to Cuba, and perhaps Venezuela, that it would not rule out the use of terrorists in confronting the perceived threat these two countries pose, even at the risk of sacrificing the legitimacy of the “War on Terrorism.”
Bush Administration efforts to frame its Cuba policy in terms of U.S. national security strain its minimal credibility. Still, Cuba remains on the State Department’s list of countries supporting terrorism, despite distortions in the evidence used to justify Cuba’s inclusion. Mark Sullivan of the Congressional Research Service, for instance, observes that those who advocate that Cuba should stay on the list have succeeded in part by pointing “to the [Cuban] government’s history of supporting terrorist acts and armed insurgencies in Latin America and Africa” during the Cold War.20 Yet it is not an irrational Cold War legacy that propels Bush Administration officials to consider Cuba a real threat. Daniel Fisk, now the National Security Adviser for the Western Hemisphere, clearly articulated the nature of the perceived threat at a congressional hearing in October 2005. Identifying the “strategically located Caribbean basin” as a “high priority for this Administration,” he warned of the growing influence of Cuba and Venezuela in the region:
Cuba employs diplomatic outreach, the deployment of medical personnel and services to Caribbean countries and offers of scholarships and assistance to Caribbean students to study in Cuba. Likewise, Venezuela maintains an active diplomatic presence throughout the Caribbean basin and provides aid to several of the smaller islands. Most recently, Hugo Chavez launched Petrocaribe, a scheme to create a network of state-run oil enterprises to market Venezuelan oil. Venezuela’s concept for Petrocaribe undermines the position of private sector companies in the region and advances his “Bolivarian alternative” trade and economic agenda.
Ultimately the threat is political, Fisk explains, because of “Cuban and Venezuelan attempts to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its Caribbean partners.”21 In effect, he is saying both endanger traditional U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and are viewed as acting in tandem. Strikingly, Stephen McFarland, the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Venezuela, simply switched positions in September with Kevin Whittaker, who had been head of the State Department’s Cuba desk.
Ominously, Washington’s establishment pundits have subtly embraced this security lens, which is fast becoming the standard way of describing Cuba and Venezuela. “Chavez is a man with a mission,” Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, said in a recent interview in reference to Venezuela’s President. “He is intent on building a counterweight to U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.” Similarly, Jackson Diehl, a Washington Post editorial writer, blithely asserted in a recent column that Chávez was the “political and ideological successor to Fidel Castro” moving forward in an “aggressive attempt to succeed where Castro failed in creating an anti-American alliance.”22
Since Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998, Venezuela and Cuba have entered into a series of economic agreements that provide both countries with resources each respectively lacks [See, “Cuba’s Foreign...” p. 27]. Cuba receives 90,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for sending thousands of doctors and teachers to work in Venezuela. In late 2004 Castro and Chávez signed an agreement they said formed the base of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a proposed integration pact that seeks to include all Latin American and Caribbean countries as a counter-proposal to the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Despite the uncertain future of both agreements, the rise of left-of-center governments in South America giving Cuba unusual regard adds another reason for the Administration to once again see Cuba as a foreign policy challenge.
Recent trade agreements between China and Cuba also fuel the Bush Administration’s wariness about Havana. President Hu Jintao’s November 2004 visit to Cuba highlighted the importance his country seems to accord its new relationship with the island. President Hu agreed to postpone the repayment of debt that Cuba incurred between 1990 and 1994, and said China would provide new credits for the purchase of one million television sets and hospital equipment. The Chinese also donated $9 million for airport X-ray equipment and cloth for school uniforms. Cuba secured an agreement in which it will send 4,000 tons of nickel per year to China through 2009 in return for a $500 million investment to finish the construction of a large nickel plant in the province of Holguín. The investment is projected to double the island’s nickel production. Cuban trade with China is now 10% of the island’s total international commerce, and it ranks China as Cuba’s third largest trading partner behind Spain and Venezuela.23
The concern about China’s relationship with Cuba is two-fold. First, China’s investment reinforces Cuba’s ability to withstand U.S. pressure, reducing the leverage exercised by the Bush Administration. Second, the investments underscore a growing Chinese strategy in Latin America of securing long-term access to badly needed natural resources. In 2004, nearly half of China’s foreign direct investment went to Latin America, whereas only 23% went to Asia. Similarly, China’s bilateral trade with Latin American countries grew from $12.6 billion in 2001 to $26.8 billion in 2003.24
With these geopolitical considerations in mind, U.S. policy towards Cuba has in many ways reverted back to its Cold War aims. After the 1962 missile crisis, U.S. officials largely abandoned the goal of militarily subverting the regime, and focused instead on containing Cuba’s influence in the Third World. Containment, with its components of subversion and destabilization, has once again emerged as the favored goal, not as an irrational vestige of the Cold War, but as a rational response to a perceived menace. The threat is not so great to warrant direct U.S. intervention, even if the United States had the military capacity to invade Cuba, which it does not. But by the Administration’s calculations, Cuba’s renewed challenge to U.S. hemispheric dominance does warrant hostility—isolating it, denigrating it and keeping it on edge so that it wastes resources on defenses against the possibility of a U.S. attack.
U.S. sanctions themselves are too insignificant to have a fatally destructive impact, as the recovery of the Cuban economy—particularly with the growing ties with countries like China and Venezuela—continues to show. Yet this does not suggest that sanctions are merely payback to Bush’s conservative Florida supporters, and so would consequently disappear without Cuban-American pressure. They serve a rational purpose within the hegemonic logic and unremitting confrontational stance that guides Bush Administration policies, which in the Cuban case are rooted in a new assessment of “the Cuban threat.”
About the Author
Philip Brenner is a professor of international relations and director of the Interdisciplinary Council on Latin America at American University. Marguerite Jimenez is a Master’s degree candidate in the School of International Service, American University.
Notes
1. Guy Dinmore, “US steps up planning for a Cuba without Castro,” Financial Times, November 1, 2005.
2. Announcement of Cuba Transition Coordinator Caleb McCarry,” Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. State Department, July 28, 2005.
3. William M. LeoGrande, “The United States and Cuba: Strained Engagement,” in Cuba, the United States, and the Post-Cold War World, Morris Morley and Chris McGillion, eds. (Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida, 2005).
4. Lissa Weinmann, “Washington’s Irrational Cuba Policy,” World Policy Journal, Spring 2004, p. 23; “Election-Year Cuba Policy,” New York Times, June 27, 2004.
5. Alfredo Corchado, “Bush Favors Confrontational Approach to Castro, Cuba,” Dallas Morning News, May 9, 2003; Philip Brenner, “Overcoming Asymmetry: Is a Normal US-Cuban Relationship Possible?” in H. Michael Erisman and John M. Kirk, eds., Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy: The Impact of the “Special Period” (Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida, forthcoming 2006).
6. “President Bush Discusses Cuba Policy in Rose Garden Speech,” Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, October 10, 2003.
7. Wayne S. Smith, “Cuba shaping up as Iraq II: Administration’s Gaffes on Verge of Being Repeated in ‘Transition’,” Atlanta Constitution, May 27, 2004.
8. “Fact Sheet: Report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba,” Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, May 6, 2004.
9. Federal Register, Vol. 69, No. 115, June 16, 2004, Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, 31 CFR Part 515, Cuban Assets Control Regulations; Joshua Karlin-Resnick, “Federal Rules to Cramp Study Abroad in Cuba,” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 25, 2004, p. 41.
10. Bob Guild, staff member, Marazul Charters, October 17, 2005, personal communication with the authors.
11. Gary Marx, “Tougher U.S. Policy Curtails Aid to Cubans,” Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2005.
12. Data compiled by the authors from “Civil Penalties Information,” Office of Foreign Assets Control, U.S. Department of the Treasury. The average fine in 2005 was $1,157.
13. Susan Milligan, “New US Travel Restrictions Irk Some Anti-Castro Cubans: Administration Move Could Stir a Voter Backlash,” Boston Globe, July 4, 2004.
14. Wayne S. Smith, “Undemocratic Process,” The Nation, March 15, 2004; Bob Cusack, “DeLay Swings Momentum Against Easing Cuba Limits,” The Hill, July 6, 2005.
15. “Farm Products to Cuba Soar,” CQ Weekly Report, May 30, 2005, p. 1424; U.S. Census Bureau, “Foreign Trade Statistics, Trade with Cuba: 2005,” October 13, 2005; U.S. Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Division, Data Dissemination Branch, Washington, D.C.
16. Edmund L. Andrews, “Senate Confirms 5 for Vacant Senior Posts at Treasury Dept.,” New York Times, July 30, 2005.
17. USAID, “FY 2005 Congressional Budget Justification: Cuba,” January 14, 2005.
18. Pablo Bachelet, “Martinez: Cuban Aid Should be Welcomed,” Miami Herald, September 8, 2005.
19. See,http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releaes/2001/09/200109251.html.
20. Mark Sullivan, “Cuba: Issues for the 109th Congress” CRS Report for Congress No. RL32730, May 25, 2005 (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress), p. 25.
21. Daniel Fisk, “Statement Before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, House Committee on International Relations,” October 19, 2005.
22. Michael Shifter, “Dealing With Venezuela,” Washington Post, September 6, 2005; Jackson Diehl, “Buying Support in Latin America,” Washington Post, September 26, 2005.
23. Marc Frank, “Hu Extends Hand of Friendship to Forsaken Comrades of Cuba,” Financial Times, November 24, 2004; Philip Peters, “Cuba’s International Economic Strategy Pays Off,” Cuba Policy Report, February 4, 2005 (Arlington, VA: Lexington Institute).
24. R. Evan Ellis, U.S. National Security Implications of Chinese Involvement in Latin America (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, June 2005).
