When the Obama administration reestablished U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba in December 2014, many experts predicted that it would bring a flood of new money to the island, transforming its economy and political culture for the better. Almost two-and-a-half years later, U.S. trade with Cuba continues to languish, and a handful of executive orders on the part of President Donald Trump could soon set back the clock to the days when hardline opposition to ties with Cuba’s communist regime was the norm in Washington. What is the future of U.S.-Cuba ties now that the honeymoon that began under Obama is over? Which aspects, if any, of the Obama administration campaign to open up Cuba are most likely to survive?
On the one hand, during his presidential campaign, “Trump certainly talked about repudiating what Obama has done with Cuba,” says Stephen Kobrin, Wharton emeritus management professor. “Clearly, with the stroke of a pen, he could eliminate a lot of the liberalization that occurred under Obama,” which was enacted as executive orders, not congressionally sanctioned legislation. On the other hand, “the streets have not exactly been paved with gold in Cuba,” Kobrin notes. “There hasn’t been a great rush to do business in Cuba. Right now, there is not a huge amount of interest.” Of the dramatic rapprochement with Cuba undertaken by President Obama, Kobrin adds: “It was an historical event that seems to have come and gone.”
Cuban-American attorney Gustavo Arnavat, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notes, “One of the missed opportunities is that not as many deals were done” as anticipated. “That’s bad for a number of different reasons. One, I think U.S. companies have missed out. I think the Cuban people and the Cuban government have missed out on great U.S. products and services.” He adds that now — just as the Trump administration is reviewing its Cuba policy — instead of having 100 U.S. companies advocating for liberalization by going to their congressional representatives and saying, ‘Look, we have this business now in Cuba,’ “you only have 25 or 30 or so.” (Editor’s note: Arnavat, who recently returned from Cuba, addressed this topic at the 2017 Wharton Latin American Conference, where Knowledge@Wharton interviewed him. The interview will be published soon.)
Uncertainty and Disappointment
“The impact of Donald Trump’s victory can be defined by one word: ‘uncertainty,’” notes John Kavulich, president of the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. “That uncertainty has negatively impacted interest by U.S. companies [in Cuba].”
In both countries, disappointment has been fueled by misunderstanding of the potential impact of their mutual ties. Charles Shapiro, president of the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, says that “U.S. business people thought that they were going to go to Cuba and see hundred dollar bills floating down the streets. Just as Americans thought that Cuba was going to change pretty quickly after December 2014, individual Cubans also thought that their standard of living was going to change [right away] … [that] their lives were going to get better. Both of those expectations were wrong; real life is more complicated.”
“Clearly, with the stroke of a pen, [Trump] could eliminate a lot of the liberalization that occurred under Obama.”–Stephen Kobrin
Many Americans imagined that the Cuban government would soon liberate political prisoners and make political reforms. When that didn’t happen, critics argued that the U.S. was making all the concessions, but the Cubans were doing nothing to open their economy. Notes Kavulich, “Basically, an overall negative narrative has been created.”
And while uncertainty is growing over which measures Trump might take to unwind the Obama administration’s efforts, “the Cuban government is not doing its part to mitigate any of the uncertainty,” Kavulich notes. “What it could do would be to allow more U.S. companies to have a presence in Cuba, more U.S. companies to directly engage with the licensed independent sector in Cuba. They are not allowing that.” Adds Arnavat, “If you look at Cuba’s plan for economic development, [foreign direct investment by U.S. companies] just doesn’t quite fit into their priorities” at this time for a variety of reasons, including opposition to the embargo.”
It’s not just the Americans who aren’t investing in Cuba now, notes Shapiro. “The Chinese are not investing in Cuba,” nor are the Brazilians or the Europeans. “It’s because you can make more money investing in Singapore or Atlanta, Georgia” or many other places under the current system in Cuba. He adds, “One gets the sense that the government of Cuba doesn’t understand that foreign direct investment is a competition — that the investor gets to decide where he is going to get the best return on his money. There are not people out there wanting to throw their money at Cuba in a way that doesn’t allow them to make a competitive return on their investment. That’s the issue.”
In the travel sector, explains Kavulich, “The airlines, in their exuberance and enthusiasm to get as many routes as possible, far exceeded what the reality was going to be. All the airlines asked for far more seats than they were going to be able to fill. They asked for approximately three million seats, when the agreement with the Cubans was for about one to 1.2 million. From the beginning, it was out of whack, but the airlines were all trying to grab as many of the routes as they could.”
As international hotel companies signed building contracts, U.S. arrivals in Cuba ballooned 34% between 2015 and 2016. Hotel rates soared by between 100% and 400%, with rooms previously priced at $150 per night skyrocketing to $650, according to New York-based tour operator Insight Cuba. American Airlines, JetBlue, Spirit and other carriers started operating daily flights to 10 cities, including airports that hadn’t welcomed U.S. airlines in decades. But the novelty has worn off, and hotel rates have normalized. Airlines that overestimated demand for Cuba are cutting back on their routes and using smaller planes.
“One gets the sense that the government of Cuba doesn’t understand that foreign direct investment is a competition.”–Charles Shapiro
Two major factors have changed since the high-profile restoration of diplomatic ties during the Obama administration, says Wharton management professor Mauro Guillen. “The first is the change in the U.S. administration. The second is that Raul Castro has said that he will step down in a couple of years. There is a power struggle going on in Cuba between those who are traditional and others who believe, like Raul, that there should be a change towards more freedoms in Cuba. Both factors are making it difficult to get things moving in that direction.”
Guillen adds: “Trump has not been president for even 100 days yet; we’re going to have to wait and see. It’s not so much that [everyone has] lost interest, but that there are so many other things going on that require the attention” of lobbyists and policy makers in the U.S.
Travel: ‘A Bad Telenovela’
Trump’s first statement about changes in U.S. policy is expected soon, but no one knows for sure what to expect. The Trump administration is “not going to sit around with a majority in the [U.S.] House, Senate and … the Supreme Court — and not do anything. They’re taking their time until they think the President and people around him have time to act,” says David Lewis, president of Manchester Trade, a Washington consultancy. “My view is that they are not going to leave this [situation] as it is.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that Trump will undo every policy change made by Obama, he adds.
According to Kavulich, “If they decide to go with increased enforcement [of the travel rules] — which it seems they will do — that could lead to the demise of the ‘self-defined trips’ that have become a popular way for Americans to visit Cuba,” despite the official ban on tourism. “One change the Obama administration made was to allow people to go to Cuba on their own. They didn’t have to go with a group, and they could self-certify. It was the honor system on steroids.”
Lewis argues that the changes made in the travel sector “are going to remain as is — not because [the Trump administration] thinks it’s good, but because to try and reverse travel is going to be a major quagmire, a whirlpool, like a bad telenovela that will never end. You’re going to have to start fighting with the nuns who go to Cuba, with the college kids who go to Cuba, with the NGOs. It will be a never-ending mad house, which could engulf [the administration’s] limited bench.”
However, in order to pressure the Cuban government to liberalize its economy, the Trump administration could tighten the screws on U.S. visitors in various ways. Kavulich notes that it may try to make travel harder for U.S. visitors to Cuba who don’t comply with the official rules, which make it impossible for Americans to visit as a tourist, by requiring them to go through several inspections at customs. Overall, the Trump administration “can do a lot without seeming as though they are being punitive, simply by enforcing the regulations.”
“There is a power struggle going on in Cuba between those who are traditional and others who believe … that there should be a change towards more freedoms in Cuba.”–Mauro Guillen
The Trump administration could also “make it clear that no further licenses will be given to any [U.S.] company that wants to engage with the Cuban military, which controls the Cuban hospitality sector,” adds Kavulich. “If they act retroactively, that means the Sheraton [in Havana, the first hotel to operate under a U.S. brand since the 1959 revolution] gets closed; U.S. cruise ships can’t dock at the ports; and U.S. [air] carriers can’t land at the airports because the Cuban military controls all of it.”
“With Trump, you’re reading tea leaves,” says Kobrin. “You never know what’s real and isn’t. But he is not viscerally anti-communist. He isn’t part of the old Republican Cold War establishment. He doesn’t seem to have trouble dealing with Hungary, for example, and his problems with China have more to do with what he perceives as ‘American first’ and U.S. interests, rather than their political system.” Moreover, “the opposition to establishing relations with Cuba comes especially from Congress and Cuban-American members of Congress, who are concerned about the political system.”
Reasons for Optimism
Originally, the expectation was that an announcement by the administration regarding Cuba would be made in early February and then March. “It seems as though the announcement is being held hostage to whatever events are happening each day,” Kobrin says. “It could end up that the decision could be a tweet that is a response to something the Cuban government does that we don’t know about yet.”
Overall, Kobrin says, “I’ve always felt that once liberalization occurs, Cuba is just another island in the sun. It has some advantages in terms of its medical system, the education of the populace, and so forth, but then it has to compete with every other Caribbean island, once the novelty has worn off. Cuba is not a logical place to put much in the way of manufacturing or other sorts of industry, [except] maybe some health care initiatives.”
Shapiro is more optimistic. “The private sector in Cuba is growing. Cubans call [self-employed workers] cuentapropistas — which means they are ‘working on their own account.’ And they are [becoming] a larger percentage of the work force. Lots of people in Cuba have their government job, but they are doing other things as well. They can’t exist on a government salary.… Everybody in Cuba is working a deal.” Internet access has actually skyrocketed, he adds, with Wi-Fi hot spots available in parks around the country. “Lots of people use them, and they are owned by the government. Unlike the case in China, you can access The New York Times in Cuba, and more importantly, El Pais from Spain.”
“I’m still a little bit hopeful and optimistic,” Guillen says. “At least, a framework has been established for the basic relationships…. Now we have cruise ships going through Havana, we have regularly scheduled flights, and we have some broadening of the kinds of trade that can be done. Let’s give this first round of reforms some time to sink in. Then, the [Trump] administration will have a better idea of what it wants to do.”
Join The Discussion
15 Comments So Far
Iniciativa Cubaverdad
“ObamaCastroCare” hasn’t worked for the Cuban people. Nor has it worked for US industry.
Where it has worked is in profiting the Castro elite through higher tourist income (the whole sector is controlled by GAESA the military holding company run by Raul Castro’s son-in-law). Prices of hotels increased, quality remained bad. US tourists now start staying away and US airlines cut back on flights. US investments (see Oggun tractors) fist hailed was cancelled. A few hotel chains run hotels only to face massive problems over customer complaints over food and facilities. “People to People” tourism is controlled by the regime with tourists in buses taken to propaganda sites and controlled by guidees and police (even if they don’t notice it). The Cubans copied the old Soviet “Inturist” model.
Cruise ships bring very few benefits and those go to the regime with its tourist operations and bus companies while transport for Cuban nationals is a disaster.
Medical tourists (combined with the 8 to 10 billion dollar rent a doctor scheme) has devastated the part of the apartheid health system of the average Cuba even more while it was already in tatters from lack of equipment, medicines, supplies, ….
Some Cubans profited from running private restaurants (built with remittances), increased remittances (Western Union reports 62% of Cubans get them), “B&B” accommodation, (child) prostitution, … but most haven’t and it is Havana that received most of the benefits while most of rural Cuba and especially Oriente (Eastern part) is suffering.
On the human rights front there is more repression and more arrests than ever. As only positives I see that they are better reported and that sentences – in the past 25 years or more – are shorter but still abusive (3 -10 years).
In short :”ObamaCastroCare” was a program to favor Obama first, the regime second, US tourists third, …. and it left the Cuban people with even more problems (higher food shortages, less transport, less medical care, …).
End the pro-Castro policy and set up a true “pro-Cuba” policy.
Be a caring nation.
John McAuliff
The number and variety of US visitors to Cuba is steadily increasing. The commercial airlines brought 3 times the number of seats previously provided by charters in order to position themselves for the long term market. No surprise that they are adjusting their service to the actual current market.
The Trump Administration is most likely to leave travel largely untouched while laying the groundwork for a broader mutual opening.
John Kavulich, intractably pessimistic, argues “If they decide to go with increased enforcement [of the travel rules] — which it seems they will do — that could lead to the demise of the ‘self-defined trips’ that have become a popular way for Americans to visit Cuba”.
Such a policy would be completely counterproductive.
The individual general license for people to people travel has existed for slightly more than a year but already plays a very significant role:
1) Independent travelers are the fastest growing sector of Americans visiting Cuba. They are vitally important for US airlines to fill their capacity.
2) This is because independent travel can be undertaken at a far more reasonable cost than group tours, making it available for a greater diversity of Americans. Most group tours charge more than $3,000 for a week. Individuals can spend as little as $1,000.
3) Two or three generation families can now travel to Cuba. In addition to cost factors, bringing children is not very welcome in group tours. Children have a multiplier effect on creating trust and friendships.
4) Cuba is now accessible to American students and other back-packers, just as it has been for years to their Canadian and European counterparts. They naturally are inclined to interact informally and socially with their Cuban peers.
5) Group tours are carefully programmed and monitored by Cuban State companies. Like any officially sponsored program in any country (including ours), itineraries are designed to convey a desired picture of the country. They do offer a valuable and convenient window for their participants to a little known society but it is largely pre-determined.
6) Self-directed individuals follow a personalized and spontaneous program inherently more integrated with the grass roots of Cuban society.
7) Expenditures by independent travelers disproportionately benefit individual Cubans and support the emerging private sector of bed and breakfasts, private restaurants, drivers and gray market guides.
I have worked with tour groups to Cuba for twenty years, most of that time under cumbersome, bureaucratic, politicized and arbitrary OFAC licensing. Our priority now is to promote independent travel for its benefit to both countries. The situation today is far superior for group and independent travelers and it would be very sad and counter-intuitive if the Trump Administration moved our country backwards, infringing again on the rights of our own people to satisfy the vengeful illusions of a small self-interested minority.
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
José Pallì
Reading tea leaves is not the answer; patience is.
And patience means to know (and accept) that restoring the historically solid ties -until shortly after January 1st, 1959- between Cuba and the United States is a process that calls for a number of small steps, not mile long jumps.
And most of those steps involve the evolution of the Cuban Legal System towards a more foreign investor friendly one. The current Cuban Foreign Investment Law is not, in paper, a bad law when it comes to protecting foreign investment. But other steps should be pursued by Cuba in order to alter the prevailing contrary perception.
Patience’s faithful companion is perseverance, so any talk on our part of returning to a tightening of the screws is nothing but the perpetuation of a childish tantrum (a step backwards to sustain a “policy” -or lack thereof- that would only benefit a few sore egos who merrily play in that swamp the president vowed to drain). But our political system being what it currently is -I would not wish it on Cubans-the embargo still hangs over us as a rotten corpse crying out for a final resting place.
Thus the uncertainty. The next small step from our side should be the burial rites for Helms-Burton and all its regulatory progeny, regardless of what Cuba does. Is that feasible in our decadent political system? I am not giving up hope yet…
Iniciativa Cubaverdad
José, lifting Helms Burton without compensation for expropriated US properties in abandoning those US citizens that lost their properties and abandoning the Cuban people to a strengthened repressive and corrupt system.
That is not “a small step”. That is an end to all sanctions and incentives for change.
Take your own advice: patience and combine it with solidarity with the victims of the Castro regime. That is the way forward.
José Pallì
“Iniciativos”, you may feel like your cabal of initiated fellows in Cuban affairs represent the interests of the “repressed” Cuban people, but you can seldom do so without listening to them. And the fact is most of you guys have never even set foot in the island and do not care about the vast majority of Cubans there who took to the streets in joyful celebration of the announcement made on December 17th, 2014 by Barak Obama and Raul Castro.
I understand your enthusiasm about the claims aspect, because the scent of money is obviously pleasing. But that aspect is chicken-feed compared to advancing on so many other aspects of the US-Cuba relationship when it comes to measuring the benefits for the 11 million Cubans in the island.
In fact, a case could be made on behalf of lifting Helms Burton as a way to disentangle the claims issue and facilitate a solution to that “very small” aspect of the US-Cuba relationship. Specially since it has always been US, not Cuba, who have turned our back to any such solution, waiting for the silly requirements listed in Helms Burton to be met by Cuba (same as waiting for hell to freeze over).
Your “way forward” (meaning backwards) seeks to victimize those 11 million Cubans in the island you care so little for for the sake of “solidarity” with those you call “the victims of the Castro regime”. I left Cuba in 1960 but I have never seen myself as a “victim of the Castro regime”, thank you!
Iniciativa Cubaverdad
José, please remain civil. We are no “cabal” (defined as: ” the contrived schemes of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn government); also : a group engaged in such schemes”).
Use arguments not insults.
The fact that you put “repressed” in quotes means that you deny the repression that is well documented by local dissidents, the UN, lots of nations (European and others so not just USA), the European Parliament (Sakharov prizes), human rights groups (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, RSF, …..).
As far as “listening to them [the Cuban people] I think we do more of that than you and get better information than you. Members are various people born in Cuba, people with a Cuban spouse (and therefore an extended family in Cuba), human rights activists, people that have worked in Cuba for mixed companies (both Cubans and Europeans) and lots of people that traveled to Cuba. Lots of us speak weekly or monthly with lots of people.
So your claim that “most of us have never set foot on the Island” is a blatant lie. I myself went first to Cuba in 1993. I saw the “maleconazo” (popular revolt in Havana) in 1994. There were more people on the streets than than at most Obama events.
You started your “reply” with and insult and a lie. Far out of place for a site like this, no? I once considered Wharton to study.
As far as the Obama visit creating some hope for the Cuban people, that is true. that fact is that – except for the few (owners of paladares and casas particulares) very little has changed. The “effect” is also limited to Havana, some tourist destinations (Trinidad), even less in cruise ports and nothing at all anywhere else except for an increase of remittances (Western Union reports 62% of Cuban get remittances). Things even got worse for Cubans: less food, beer shortage, higher prices, less medical care in the part of the Cuban apartheid system in Cuba.
Look up:
– “American Tourists Are Eating All of Cuba’s Already Scarce Food”
– “Cuba running low on beer as thirsty US tourists descend”
As far as “vile” goes (another insult) I think it is vile to deny people justice. Expropriation without compensation is against international law as even the Castro regime admits. The only “chicken feed” is what 11 million Cubans get from the change compared to the Castro elite that controls nearly all aspects of the Cuban economy and since Raul Castro’s seizure of the assets of the “parliamentarians” under Alarcon (basically Cimex) about all of tourism under GAESA (a company run by Raul Castro’s son in law). Look it up and get educated.
The issues raised in Helms Burton are at the core of the US-Castro dispute. The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 sets several other conditions to be met: free elections, competitive party politics, respect for human rights, …. People that do not support those are of a doubtful character to me. It is those that not support these freedoms that most people would consider “vile”.
But in one aspect you are right (and wrong at the same time): the Castro regime and its elite will resist these changes as it would reduce there privileges. You will not have to wait until “hell freezes over”. Maduro’s decline and the reluctance of Putin (also in dire straits economically) and china (fed up with paying billions for nothing) don’t seem ready to step in to subsidize the Castro regime without some change. Now only a critical mistake of the US government can save the Castro regime. I have often said that Obama made a very big mistake: he looked at the trade sanctions past and his future and not at the trade sanctions future and the Cuban’s people future.
While the “embargo” has been unsuccessful for immediate change for years due to Soviet subsidies (35% of GDP) followed (to a lesser extent) by Venezuelan money and lots of loans Cuba defaulted on lots of debt (Russia 35 billion written off, Mexico 300 million, South Africa, France, Spain, ….), now Cuba has no financing and no donator any longer. Now it needs the USA. Now sanctions will become more important and can contribute to real change for the 11 million Cuba.ns as the elite now may have to reduce its demands and allow progress for the Cuban people in its own interest.
It is your “way backward” (continuation of the Castro elite’s rule). Mine is forward looking.
You claim to have left Cuba. If that is true – and I doubt it – then you know the true nature of the Castro regime and that makes me wonder why you would try to support that elite. I would also ask you to respect the basic tenure and quality of this forum by refraining from insults and obviously false statements. The Iniciativa runs websites with over 400,000 news items on Cuba to inform people of Cuban reality so they can form their own opinion (Castro sources are included in some sites). We are neither a “cabal” nor “vile” and “ignorant”.
José Pallì
“I myself”…. “Mine”… “i have always said”…Be a man (or a girl, who can tell?) and come out of the shadows so we all can know who you are…
The “Iniciativa” is simply one more well oiled ($$$) propaganda / lobbying machine with its own “interests” in mind (those of its “oilers”) and absolutely no interest in listening to millions of Cubans in Cuba who are in favor of better relations with the USA: you just pick “your” -in more ways than one- dissident voices in Cuba sticking to those who support your “freedom fighting” bu$ine$$, which hinges on clinging to a policy that you have made a living off for decades.
If being “vile” -a word I had never used until now- is putting the spotlight on the propagandistic nature of your many websites and news items about “Cuban reality” (LOL) then I am proud of being “vile”. Fortunately, more and more Americans are traveling to Cuba and can now “form their own opinion” about endeavors like yours.
For eons your propaganda has been dismissed by the world at large, but only now are Americans coming around to realize what the whole world knows: that you and your ilk (I am sorry for hurting your feelings by using the word “cabal”) have victimized the Cuban people in the island for the sake of a childish need to get back at those who made you run away from your homeland.
I would love to see the 11 million Cubans or so in the island in a position to decide their political, social and economic future for themselves -getting rid of the cabal that rules over them today if they so wish-, but meantime they should be able to decide as well whether the embargo imposed on them by those who absurdly claim to represent them in Washington should be lifted at once. Your ilk is no better than te cable in the island, and laughable “now is when” pro-embargo argument -in the wake of half a century of incompetence and failure- carries no weigh anymore.
Look out for the Drano!
Iniciativa Cubaverdad
More lies and insults that show that the propaganda source are you.
Please post any proof we have received any financing from anyone but our members.
We just post facts and present them to people. That seems to completely irritate you. My answer: deal with reality and accept your lies are easily exposed.
The only person posting “propaganda” are you. People that read this exchange will see that immediately.
The people that have “victimized” the Cuban people are people like you that support the Castro dictatorship.
If you truly want to have the 11 million Cubans to be free, have human rights, have freedom of speech, …. you would support ways to remove the dictatorship.
What I see: you support it.
If you truly had “local experience” you would know that the “internal embargo” (the limitations on economic, social and political rights) is what Cubans want to be lifted first. That would would end trade sanctions.
You support repression. I support freedom and human rights.
Note that I saw you retracted your lies about us not “going t
Iniciativa Cubaverdad
Sorry, the comment got interrupted.
Note that I saw you retracted your lies about us not “going to Cuba”.
As I said: if Cubans are free to decide then the sanctions will end.
Ending the sanctions before will deny the right of Cubans to decide.
What you advocate goes against what you claim to achieve.
You are also lacking economic education: the sanctions didn’t work due to subsidies that are now falling away. You are advocating to get out of a marathon in the last half mile. That can only have a dogmatic reason.
Mukul Pandya
This note is for all readers of Knowledge@Wharton. The purpose of the comments section in our online journal is to facilitate healthy conversations and debates on a variety of issues. This particular discussion now has taken a tone that I do not believe is educational or particularly enlightening. I would ask all participants to kindly refrain from abusive comments. I hope you will respect one another and treat with kindness those with whom you don’t see eye to eye. You are welcome to disagree without being disagreeable. Thank you. (Mukul Pandya, Editor in chief, Knowledge@Wharton.)
José Pallì
My apologies, Mr. Pandya. I did not mean to engage in any debate at all. My original comment was not made in response to anybody else’s comment; it simply stated my opinion which I myself see as just one more opinion among many, since I am no more than a regular Joe (not even “the plumber”). Kudos for a very interesting and well put together piece.
John McAuliff
Thank you Mr. Pundya. I think comment pages would work better if posters were required to use verified actual identities.
Does Cuba control on the street political opposition? Yes, but less so, and less brutally, than China and Egypt.
Is such control inherent in the system and leadership style or reactive to economic warfare and the threat to self-determination by an inescapably close superpower? Hard to say until the external threat is ended.
Since the draconian provisions of Helms-Burton have failed to achieve their end, a different approach more consistent with international law and practice should be carried out. (There is a reason the embargo is unilateral and universally condemned every year at the UN.)
President Trump is uniquely positioned to unite business and libertarian Republicans with anti-Monroe Doctrine Democrats to repeal Helms-Burton.
Cuba will not accept domestic political or economic preconditions to achieve that end, undeniable violations of sovereignty that were not part of the normalization process with China and Vietnam. However, its leaders and ours would be naive to think that there will not be profound social, economic and political impacts from ending the embargo and permitting Cuba to enter dollar based banking and international financial institutions.
Mariela Castro told CNN that could include moving away from a one party system.
The only part of Helms-Burton that is worth keeping is language that contemplates return of Guantanamo to Cuba.
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
Mukul Pandya
Dear Mr. Palli and Mr. McAuliff, thank you for your kind words and comments. I am so grateful that you took the time to read the article and express your views. That is how, through sharing knowledge, we can all keep learning from one another – which is the mission of Knowledge@Wharton. I am very happy when people express themselves with passion because it shows they care about these issues — and it also signals to my colleagues and to me that we are publishing articles that matter to our readers. My only problem is when passion turns into disrespect and abuse; that’s when it becomes counter-productive. Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment on Knowledge@Wharton – and I hope you will continue to do so. I am deeply grateful.
John McAuliff
Apologies, I misspelled Pandya. And I don’t know whether Mukul is a male or female name.
Iniciativa Cubaverdad
To Mukul Pandya.
I couldn’t agree more. Discussion on corroborated facts is what this site is all about. Not insults, conjecture, and lies.
I think I have kept to these rules and can’t but encourage others to do so.
Even the “average Joe” can’t insult and lie about others here.
What Mariela Castro says and what Raul Castro does are two different things. Alejandro Castro Espin (her brother) is most like the future dictator of Cuba.
I agree 100% with you when you say: “facilitate healthy conversations and debates on a variety of issues” is what this forum is about.
Insults and lies about people you know nothing about should be banned.
Thank you for your intervention.
If this conversation continues let it be about referenced facts.