Cuba's Socialist Regime Drags Its Feet On Trade With US

Despite U.S. overtures, the island’s entrenched socialists remain intransigent about trade.

- Patrick Symmes

The U.S. president’s mission to Cuba, which has spun itself into a hurricane of diplomatic and cultural expectations, is due ashore on March 21. Barack and Michelle Obama will tour Old Havana’s cobblestone alleys, meet with revolutionaries and anti-revolutionaries, and possibly go as far as shaking the hand of an ancient, trembling, and all-powerful king.

That would be Mick Jagger, who is scheduled to perform at an outdoor concert with the band known as Los Rolling in the official Cuban media. Half a million fans are expected. The first American presidential visit to Cuba in 80 years will also include nine innings of baseball diplomacy, as the Tampa Bay Rays play the Cuban national team in the first exhibition game in 16 years.

For the U.S., the trade and economic benefits of Obama’s attempt to normalize relations with the island are obvious: Cuba was once a major importer of American farm and industrial products, linked to the economies of New Orleans and Tampa by ferry, and flooded with state-of-the-art Buick Straight Eights, circa 1952. Obama has carved out exceptions to the 55-year embargo—including, on March 15, allowing U.S. citizens to visit Cuba individually, instead of in groups, and giving Cuba access to the international banking system. But only Congress can lift the whole thing.

Raúl Castro, 84, now the island’s president and more pragmatic than his retired brother Fidél, 89, recognizes that Cuba must create millions of jobs for its restive young people and can’t afford to pay for that itself. He’ll probably ask Obama for billions of dollars in investment and an end to the embargo.