This Friday marks the 63rd anniversary of the entry into force of the U.S. embargo imposed on two-way trade with Cuba. With the introduction of Proclamation 3447, then President John F. Kennedy extended to imports a first embargo that until then only applied to U.S. exports, implemented in October 1960 by the Eisenhower administration (although in December 1960 the Cuban quota in the profitable U.S. sugar market was zeroed). The back and forth of retaliatory decisions had begun with legitimate economic moves by the political leadership of the Cuban Revolution—so acknowledged at Foggy Bottom in June 1959 assessing Cuba's first agrarian reform law—but which affected powerful American interests—such as those of the famous mogul of the time Robert J. Kleberg Jr., for example—and tended a political course intolerable to the ever overbearing Washington in the context of the Cold War, much less 90 miles away.
In this regard, the February 1960 visit to Havana by the then First Deputy Chairman of the USSR's Council of Ministers was an important watershed. I also recognize that Fidel Castro on many occasions appealed to rhetoric and decisions that fueled the adoption of an aggressive posture on the part of the Eisenhower White House, which in January 1960 was still speaking in diplomatic terms about the Cuban Revolution. In March 1960 the 69-year-old Ike gave the green light to a CIA covert action military plan—which would end in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs operation—while shortly thereafter a notorious memo from a then senior State Department official reflected another course of action with the understanding that “[the] only foreseeable means of alienating internal support [favoring Castro] is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.” It was along these lines that the Cuban Import Regulations were filed at 10:19 a.m. on February 6, 1962, in the Federal Register for publication in the next day's edition.
“The importation into the United States of all goods of Cuban origin and all goods imported from or through Cuba is prohibited except as authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury”, read the referred regulation signed by then-Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, revoked the following year by the still-enforced Cuban Assets Control Regulations. The United States had finally decided that it was impossible to coexist with a socialist-type political regime in Cuba. The holding in that position is in part fueled by the impact of thousands of exiles mainly based in South Florida who became an influential political force in Washington and today are represented in top officials such as Mario Diaz-Balart, son of the late Cuban politician Rafael L. Diaz-Balart, and brand House Appropriations Committee Vice Chair and also Chairman of its National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee, in charge of approving the budget proposal for the State Department now led by his friend and also Cuban-origin hawk Marco Rubio.
Cuban-origin Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart (source of the image).To understand why I say that Cuba policy is governed by an exclusive rationale, it might suffice to compare its current outcome with the one described in the Venezuelan case. The oil-rich nation comes from a shady electoral process—to say the least—repudiated all over the world, with a representative number of governments—including the U.S.—praising former opposition candidate Edmundo González, a pusillanimous former diplomat who went into exile in Spain, as the real winner of the electoral contest. Given the lack of transparency of the ruling Chavismo, hundreds of Venezuelans took to the streets leading demonstrations quelled with repression and the subsequent imprisonment of dozens of Venezuelans. Following Washington´s record in this matter, this would be worth a tightening of sanctions against Caracas, however, Trump has prioritized his immigration policy and perhaps silently also the health of the oil market.
Instead of a return to the maximum-pressure policy that characterized his previous tenure in the West Wing, he negotiated with Maduro—a hard blow that the Venezuelan opposition does not know how to manage—to release U.S. citizens imprisoned in the South American country, and also clinched "a deal" for Venezuela to receive national deportees, including alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Ending the 2023 Designation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status the beautiful Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem subscribes, after consultation with Rubio's State Department, that “there are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime that allow for these nationals to be safely returned to their home country”. Interesting narrative don´t you think? By the way, Díaz-Balart rejected it.
This is rhetoric too, if you will.
The seizure of this Venezuelan aircraft, used for evading U.S. sanctions and money laundering, is a powerful example of our resolve to hold the illegitimate Maduro regime accountable for its illegal actions. With the Dominican Republic and our regional partners, we will continue… pic.twitter.com/OoVETaTReJ
February 6, 2025— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio)
Instead, Cuba was redesignated as a state sponsor of terrorism in one of the first revocatory executive orders signed by Trump on his inauguration day, and not only did he put things practically in the same place where he left them in 2021, but now the only Cuban company authorized to process remittances from the United States was also included in a comprehensive list of entities with which it is forbidden to carry out transactions. These days the Antillean nation is once again suffering blackouts that simultaneously—at peak night time—punish half of the users of the electricity service, in the manifestation of the designation in 2019 of the state-owned fuel importing company.
On the Panama Canal saga
Rubio: "The United States has a treaty obligation to protect the Panama Canal if it comes under attack… That treaty obligation would have to be enforced by the armed forces of the United States, particularly the U.S. Navy. I find it absurd that we would have to pay fees to transit a zone that we are obligated to protect in a time of conflict."
Panama's president denied the US State Department’s claim that his country had reached a deal allowing US warships to transit the Panama Canal for freehttps://t.co/URUCBf4rz4
February 6, 2025— Dánica Coto (@danicacoto)
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