The "thaw" in the U.S.-Cuba political relationship will be beneficial to the United States over the next 10 years and beyond.
The thaw in the U.S.-Cuba relationship will have negative effects
The thaw in the U.S. cuba relationship will have beneficial effects
History
Economic effects
Social effects
Economic effects for Americans
Economic effects for cubans
Social effects for Americans
Social effect for Cubans
United States
Obama mishandling situation
Recent actions
Cuban Missile Crisis
Steps President Obama has taken to better relations
Cubans
Bipartisan Freedom to Export to Cuba Act
knocks down the legal barriers to Americans doing business with China
This bill lifts the trade embargo on Cuba
Leadership
Social conditions
Economic conditions
Events
U-2 affair- U.S spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union and the United states didn’t admit it was ours until they showed us the pilot and we were forced to.
massive retaliation- During the 1950’s the Eisenhower administration had cut back on conventional military forces and placed substantial emphasis on air power and nuclear weapons, announcing the doctrine of massive retaliation by which any communist attack on the free world would be met with a massive attack on the soviet union itself.
Flexible response doctrine.
October 14th 1962 – the united states discovers soviet offensive missiles in Cuba and issues an ultimatum demanding their removal. Cuba is quarantined and placed under a U.S Naval blockade. After several days of tense confrontation, the Soviets agree to remove their missiles on the 28th of October
November 17th, 1960 – The CIA briefs Kennedy on the plans to back Cuban Exiles in an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs
- April 17th 1961 – the invasion at the Bay of pigs fails and the surviving members of the force are captured and imprisoned ‘
Effects
Increased tensions with Cuba leading to missile crisis
Soldiers who survived are captured, imprisoned and tortured
Lives lost for no reason
What this means
Cuba has nuclear weapons on our doorstep ready to fire
Most likely would have drawn in other countries as well
United States is on the verge of a possible atomic world war
We had a literal wall around cuba to prevent them from doing anything or going anywhere
Increasing tensions
Shows the USA was just as guilty in the spying game and offensive aspect
Cuba and Russia had no reason to trust us
Both sides were just looking for ways to one up one another
Constant fighting back and forth and retaliation
If this were to happen again there is a good chance one person would overstep a boundary and it would initiarte a war
Fine line between war and peace
Cuban immigrants
Favored over other types of immigrants
Cuban People leaving behind their country due to economic difficulties
Establish and enforce immigration policy enacted the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act in 1966. The CAA provides special provisions conferring legal status for Cuban refugees and serves as an escape towards freedom and justice for the Cuban People
Fidel castro
Died on November 5th 2016
Tourism
Tourism
Increased tourism for Cuba from Americans which could possibly be a huge catalyst for economic growth
estimated 700,000 Americans visited the island last year
Government
Security
Two countries working more together to combat terrorism and internet security, cooperation comes at an embassy level. (Vick)
Any kind of change will be very slow and will require the full support of Cuban Offiscial
Approval?
-68% of American support ending the trade embargo with Cuba – 74% support lifting the travel ban
Cuba
Fidel Castro
Communist government
opponents were executed
Led communist government
Any outspoken opponents were executed
Raul Catro
Successor of FIdel
No groundbreaking policies
Events / Government
Independent nation in 1902
New constitution in 1976 setting forth the Cuban communist party
power handed down with a sort of dynasty
Military plays big role in government
oppressing people so economy hasn't had the chance to blossom
Relations with USA
Since the early 1960’s the United states policy in regards to Cuba have basically isolating the island through comprehensive economic sanctions, including an embargo on trade and financial transactions
Relations with Cuba deteriorated sharply when Fidel Castro began to build a communist dictatorship and moved his country to have a relationship with the Soviet union
-Late 1900’s Cuba was on a economic decline
The CDA prohibits U.S. subsidiaries from engaging in trade wiih Cuba and prohibits entry into the United States for any sea-borne vessel to load or unload freight if it has been involved in trade with Cuba within the previous 180 days. The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, enacted in the aftermath of Cuba's shooting down of two U.S. civilian planes in February 1996, combines a variety of measures to increase pressure on Cuba and provides for a plan to assist Cuba once it begins the transition to democracy. Most significantly, the law codified the Cuban embargo, including all restrictions under the CACR.”
“Cuba's economy is largely state-controlled, with the government owning most means of production and employing over 80 percent of the workforce”
“Food product exports, already the biggest American export category to Cuba, have grown by almost 120 percent since 2001,”
we won't have mass exodus of Cuban refugees anymore
How Americans saw Cuba
During Cuban Missile Crisis
Following Cuban Missile Crisis
“the 1980 exodus of around 125,000 Cubans to the United States in the so-called Mariel boatlift; the 1994 exodus of more than 30,000 Cubans who were interdicted and housed at U.S. facilities in Guantánamo and Panama; and the February 1996 shoot-down by Cuban fighter jets of two U.S. civilian planes operated by the Cuban American group Brothers to the Rescue, which resulted in the death of four U.S. crew members”
committed environmentalist
Cuba wants our business to invest in them
Enable new partnerships with Cuban companies
possibility for American company growth
only a fourth of Cubans have internet access
best cellular service is 2G
USA has the fourth largest source of imports to Cuba based solely on authorized shipments of agriculture and medical supplies. We are also on of Cuba’s top food suppliers
Cubans need our influence
Need to free political prisoners
stop arresting people for free speech
Needs to liberalize its state-centric economic system if it only hopes to allow its people to prosper
In the first two months of 2016 alone, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights has documented a staggering 2,588 political arrests
11 million people imprisoned by Castro’s communist regime
We are treating Castro and the government as if it is just and is in no rush to change
called Castro a president
Cuban people are suffering
Cuba
Cuban culture
Cuban doesn’t need things like fast food and a Lowes store, we would be destroying the last piece of paradise. Cuba is like a living time capsule
Assimilating into american culture, good or bad thing?
Environment
Tourism would destroy Cuban coral reefs and there are over 60 miles of it
government
government in no rush
why would they want to lose power? no motives
Bettering relations is a long process because there is no specific way to do it, the officials must get together and fix and work out every little detail
“The current embargo has been in place for 50 years, and it has greatly constrained opportunities for American businesses by restricting commerce by restricting our exports — things that are made in America — from going to a place that is only 90 miles off our shores and has 11 million people.”
New Bill
Create Jobs
help farmers
Open up new economic opportunity for American Businesses
Cuba would have access to new products
especially in Minnesota
My home State of Minnesota exported about $20 million in agricultural products to Cuba in 2013. I think people are surprised by that, but as many of us know, there are humanitarian exceptions to the current embargo. So our country is already exporting, and my State alone exported $20 million in products. With the President’s action alone, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture estimates that exports could increase by another $20 million
Cuban human rights activist Yoani Sanchez wrote:
It is impossible for Cubans to buy staples like eggs or cooking oil without turning to the underground market. Rationing forces people to stand in line for hours for poultry and fish. On the Cuban government’s fiftieth anniversary in 2009, it provided families with an extra half pound of ground beef, but that beef was not from the U.S. It was sponsored by the Venezuelan government ... a meager gift nicknamed “Hugo Chavez’s Hamburger” by everyday Cubans.
“This island nation, which lies just 90 miles from our shores . . . should be a partner in our hemisphere, not an estranged country or enemy.
• This will mark the first time a U.S. President is visiting a dictatorship in Latin America since Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 visit to Nicaragua, and it’s the first presidential visit to Cuba since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
Now let me show you this other poster. This is a poster of President Reagan with Gorbachev in 1987. And what happened there? President Reagan said: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” In Havana, 2016, President Obama says: Thank you, President Castro, for your spirit of openness.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights documented over 900 political arrests by the Castro regime in the month of December 2015 and 1,400 in January 2016 alone.
Dodge further conflict and new Cuban missile crisis
U.S. President John F. Kennedy thought the chance of escalation to war was “between 1 in 3 and even” and what we have learned in later decades has done nothing to lengthen those odds. Also, the addition of nuclear armed ballistic missiles today adds an extra threat.
severity
Prior to the enactment of the CAA, the United States face not only military threats, but also the probability of a nuclear war, political chaos, and a massive migration of refugees.
The Soviet Union had deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and they could have been launched very easily.
If it weren’t for good decisions of John F. Kennedy we could have faced nuclear annihilation.
“In October 1962, a U.S. spy plane caught the Soviet Union attempting to' sneak nuclear-tipped missiles into Cuba, 9o miles off the United States' coast. Kennedy determined at the outset that this could not stand. After a week of secret deliberations with his most trusted advisers, he announced the discovery to the world and imposed a naval blockade on further shipments of armaments to Cuba. “
Russian Involvement
Cuba was the only communist country able to deploy their armed forces thousands of miles from its border to participate in wars that were partly related to the defense of the homeland.
Soviet Union Provided massive economic, military and political support for Cuba
1994 We created a naval quarantine around Cuba which enabled us to receive support of the Organization of American States
“Without Soviet subsidies, many observers reasoned, Cuba was ripe for change”
“The United Nations Security Council noted—alas, on July 26— that the "unlawful shooting down by the Cuban Air Force of two civil aircraft on 24 February 1996 violated the principle that States must refrain from the use of weapons against civil aircraft in fiight," and condemned such Cuban behavior (UN, Security Council, 1996).”
“The Cuban Air Force's actions and the hardline domestic crackdown forced President Clinton to make a decision. For the first time since the 1962 missile crisis, a president ofthe United States contemplated ordering the US armed forces to take military action against Cuba.*”
“If there is no intention,” he said, “to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that knot. We are ready for this.”
United States and Cuba are ready to better relations
Student were kept up to date with what was going on
american hatred towards Cuba was at an all time high
Children had school drills to practice what to do
Fear united America
Americans have always wanted Cuban cigars
People were sure there was going to be a nuclear war, reached DEFCON 2
Obama instructed the Secretary of State to initiate discussions with Cuba about diplomatic relations what were hurt in January of 1961
what are we trying to do ?
US trying to reform Cuban government and improve human right conditions
Trying to empower Cuban population.
US planning to reestablish embassy in Havana and carry out high level exchanges between governments. Next round of US – Cuba migration talks
Trying to increase flow of information to and from Cuban people
New policies make it easier for Americans to provide business Training for private Cuban Businesses and small farmers and provide other support for growth of Cuba’ Nascent private sector.
Remittance levels raised from $500 to $2,000 so that Cuban people can have the opportunity to have money sent to back to them
Licensed U.S. traveler to Cuba will be authorized to import $400 worth of goods from Cuba, meaning it will enable Cuba to sell its product to American people
97% of Cubans want better relations with American “normalization”
Many people say Cuban government needs to take the first step in bettering human rights in their country, we can’t do everything and they need to be the ones to take action, it is their country
• “Our travel and remittance policies are helping Cubans by providing alternative sources of information and opportunities for self-employment and private property ownership, and by strengthening independent civil society. “
• “Cuba has an internet penetration of about five percent—one of the lowest rates in the world. The cost of telecommunications in Cuba is exorbitantly high, while the services offered are extremely limited”
Affects of immigrants on US
Cuban crisis led to thousands of cuban prisoners coming over from cuba to US
Used to go on the midnight patrol with friend and dad who was a sergeant on south beach and witnessed people being killed, rapes, fights, all from the so called Marielitos
United states had nothing to do with these people and we will have nothing to do with all of the immigrants
Over 100,000 refugees brought over to the keys and to south Florida
Cubans would be happier to live in Cuba if they had better condition
more cuban culture
violence in Miami
Almost none of Cuban immigrants can speak English
On February 24, 1996, Fidel Castro's air force shot down two light aircraft manned by Cuban Americans off the Cuban coast. Suddenly, the gradual easing of U.S. relations with Cuba that had been under way for months shifted into reverse.
Sugar production, which remains the backbone of the national economy, tumbled to about 3.3 million tons last year, the lowest in many decades, leaving Cuba unable to meet its international trade obligations. Cuba has borrowed heavily in Europe at high interest rates to support a much-increased harvest this year.
At the other extreme, some argue that Castro is the only person who benefits from the embargo, which he uses as a scapegoat for his repression and mismanagement of the economy. According to this line, the U.S. move toward rapprochement was making enough headway that it had to be stopped, and shooting down the small planes was the way to do it.
Cuban MiG fighters shot down two small Cessna aircraft flown by the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue, which Havana said had penetrated Cuban airspace; a third Brothers plane returned to the States. Four men were killed. The Brothers, whose main actions had been searching for people fleeing Cuba by sea, had also flown over the island itself and even dropped leaflets on Havana.
The outrage caused by the MiG attack derailed moves toward rapprochement and put Helms-Burton on a fast track into law. The toughest and most controversial provisions of the new legislation: give American citizens, including Cuban Americans, the right to seek damages from foreign companies that buy and use property expropriated since 1959; allow
The Cuban economy, which has declined up to 50 percent since the collapse of Castro's Soviet patron in 1989, may have stabilized; Cuban leaders claim that it grew about 2.5 percent in 1995. In any event, such stabilization or growth as there was flowed mainly from expanded tourism, reforms Castro didn't really want to make, and a relatively vibrant underground economy.
“Food product exports, already the biggest American export category to Cuba, have grown by almost 120 percent since 2001,”
Cuban economy collapse at end of 1960 was relieved due to help of soviet Union, maybe we could do the same thing today?
Increased tourism in southern cities such as Miami and possibly other northern places