Trump and Cuba: A lose-lose situation

It was no surprise that Donald Trump decided to reverse many of the measures taken by his predecessor Barack Obama to improve US-Cuba relations, but the move is none the better for that. To put it in a nutshell, all parties stand to lose from Trump's decision, except the hardliners in Havana.

US citizens will lose out as most of the travel restrictions to the island are reintroduced. It is astonishing that Washington enforces such restrictions that are more akin to a totalitarian regime than a modern democracy.

US companies will also lose out as many of those that flocked to the island in the last couple of years since the thaw in ties will find it all but impossible now to do business without dealing with GAESA, the military-controlled conglomerate, as Trump is demanding.

GAESA manages an estimated 60% of Cuba's economy and 80% of the country's tourism industry. Where the new policy leaves companies like Starwood Hotels (owned by Marriott), which has a venture with GAESA's Gaviota chain to run a hotel in Havana, or for that matter Western Union, Visa, Mastercard and Airbnb – all of which have dealings with companies controlled by the military holding – is not clear.

Ordinary Cubans, however, will lose out the most as Obama's attempts to loosen the over half-century old economic embargo are put on hold, and the prospects of working people and their families enjoying the standard of living they deserve fade rapidly.

When Obama launched the rapprochement policy on Cuba he didn't do so because he liked the communist one-party state or Raúl Castro, or admired his deceased brother Fidel. He did so because he was astute enough to realize that the policy of trying to freeze out Cuba and make its people suffer had failed, and failed for over 50 years. He also realized that the embargo and attempts to undermine the regime gave the old guard leadership the perfect scapegoat they needed to blame for Cuba's mismanagement and political repression. Ending that policy would lead to the opening up of the economy and subsequently, the logic goes, political reforms.

The hardliners in Havana will now be rubbing their hands in glee.   

Interestingly, Trump did not overturn the Obama decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba, and he has left the door open for improvements in ties if there is progress on "promoting the rule of law, respecting human rights, and taking concrete steps to foster political and economic freedoms," the White House said. Releasing political prisoners, allowing the formation of political parties, and rights of assembly and expression, as well as a commitment to hold internationally observed democratic elections are among the demands. (Such concerns didn't prevent the US president from courting a much nastier regime recently in Saudi Arabia, while the irony is, of course, that Trump's stance on Cuba makes it less rather than more likely the island's citizens will enjoy political freedoms any time soon.)

Given that even before Obama changed Washington's approach to Cuba the US interests section in Havana was bigger than many embassies, cynics may say restoring full relations was little more than symbolic. In diplomacy and international relations, however, symbols matter, and are a symptom of underlying bonds.