U.S.-Cuba love affair won’t be forever

(Photo: Andrew Harnik – AP)

There is a lot of excitement about President Barack Obama’s lifting of key U.S. sanctions on Cuba, but allow me a word of caution: the current U.S. love affair with the island is likely to wane after the U.S. November elections, no matter who becomes the next U.S. president.

The reason is simple: it takes two to tango (or cha-cha-cha, in this case) and Cuba is doing very little to reciprocate for Obama’s major loosening of U.S. sanctions on the island. In addition, the next U.S. president will see the opening to Cuba as an Obama legacy issue, which he or she will probably not spend much political capital to keep expanding at any cost.

When he first announced his opening to Cuba on Dec. 17, 2014, Obama said — rightly — that the previous U.S. policy of sanctions against the island had failed, and that opening U.S. trade would empower Cuban entrepreneurs and begin to create an independent civil society in Cuba.

But now, more than a year later, even State Department officials who negotiated the re-establishment of U.S.-Cuba diplomatic ties are frustrated.

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