By Laurie Goering, Tribune Foreign Correspondent. Tribune
staff writer John Diamond contributed to this report from...
Chicago Tribune, February 15,
2001.
HAVANA In his opening diplomatic salvo at the Bush administration, Fidel
Castro opined that he hoped the new U.S. president was "not as stupid as he
seems."
Less than a week later, the Cuban leader was insisting that his nation would
"not throw the first stone" nor "rush into judging" the
change in U.S. leadership--even as another Cuban official was dismissing Bush as
an "illegitimate" president.
If Cuba's not quite sure what to make of the changes in Washington, the Bush
administration is just as torn about Cuba.
President Bush comes to office leading a Republican Party that is deeply
divided on how to deal with the United States' sometimes nettlesome neighbor to
the south.
Cuban-Americans in Florida, and their powerful congressional
representatives, can perhaps legitimately claim that their votes were what gave
Bush the edge in Florida and put him in the White House.
They want a harder line toward Cuba, including tougher sanctions against
foreign trading partners who "traffic" in properties expropriated by
Castro's government.
Toward that end, Cuban-Americans opened a shadow embassy in Washington this
week just blocks from the White House and aimed at influencing U.S.-Cuban
policy. They also have asked "our friend President Bush" for an end to
the Clinton administration's so-called appeasement policies.
At the same time, a Republican Party long known for its friendly corporate
relations faces growing pressure from its other allies, companies and farmers
eager to abandon nearly 40 years of sanctions and begin trading with Cuba. Among
them are Illinois agribusiness giants such as Archer Daniels Midland.
Bush's secretary of state, Colin Powell, says the administration intends to
keep sanctions in place.
"Mr. Castro is an aging starlet who will not change in his lifetime,
and we will have to keep containing him," Powell said during his
confirmation hearing. He warned business leaders that "no matter how much
you might want to do business in Cuba . . . we should do nothing that encourages
[Castro] or gives him the wherewithal to stay any longer."
But Bush's Cabinet is full of advisers who are no friends of trade
sanctions. Powell has begged Congress not to push through new unilateral
sanctions anywhere in the world, and Vice President Dick Cheney's former company
was a major donor to USA Engage, a top anti-sanctions group.
What those competing forces add up to, analysts say, is probably a political
stalemate, with no major changes of policy on Cuba coming from the White House,
at least for a while.
"Bush doesn't have a clear mandate so he's not going to do anything
with anyone," said Elena Freyre, an analyst until recently with the Cuban
Committee for Democracy in Miami. "We might see a change in rhetoric, but I
doubt we'll see any changes of substance."
Wayne Smith, a Cuba expert in Washington and former head of the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana, also sees few changes in policy ahead. "The
Bush administration is not going to move forward with any kind of initiatives to
improve relations with Cuba," Smith said.
Yet analysts in Washington and Havana say U.S. policy toward Cuba is already
changing in subtle ways.
Under the Clinton administration, groups seeking to travel to Cuba for
people-to-people and cultural exchanges got relatively easy licensing approval,
as part of the administration's theory that cultural contact was the surest path
to change in Cuba. That led to a flood of licensed U.S. visitors to the island.
The Bush administration is reviewing that policy, and the Treasury
Department, which issues travel licenses to the island, is expected to give such
requests tighter scrutiny, U.S. officials said.
The new administration also will have a big hand in writing the regulations
governing food and medicine sales to the island, a policy Congress approved last
year and which is set to take effect at the end of February.
Castro, angry that the watered-down measure eventually passed by Congress
forbids U.S. financing for food and medicine sales, has vowed not to buy an
aspirin or a grain of rice from U.S. suppliers.
That has not stopped U.S. farmers and industries from hustling to put
together smaller deals that do not require financing, just in case Castro
changes his mind.
Just how the Bush administration words the sales regulations may be the
deciding factor in whether the new policy leads to sales or becomes a token
gesture.
The other Cuba policy issue the Bush administration will be forced to decide
by midyear is whether to implement some of the more controversial provisions of
the 1996 Helms-Burton Act.
One such provision allows the United States to penalize European or Canadian
firms that operate hotels or other businesses in properties expropriated by
Castro's government from Cuban exiles. Another provision allows the U.S. to deny
visas to their executives.
Clinton suspended enforcement of those provisions--most recently in
January--but anti-Castro senators including Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) want Bush to
allow the sanctions to take effect. One target is Sol Melia, a Spanish company
that owns a number of prominent hotels in Cuba.
Opponents of the sanctions argue that allowing them to take hold would be
tantamount to starting a trade war with U.S. allies, and would lead to certain
condemnation of the United States for violating international law.
"The last thing Bush needs right now is a trade war with Europe,"
Freyre said, predicting Bush would continue the Clinton-era waivers when the
question comes up again this summer.
More substantial policy change on Cuba may well come from Congress, which
last year nearly lifted the travel ban to the island before ultimately reversing
itself and codifying the ban, under intense pressure from powerful
Cuban-American legislators.
With opinion polls showing that most Americans favor lifting the economic
embargo against Cuba, and with pressure growing from Republican farm states and
businesses keen to trade with Cuba, such measures may well resurface this year,
analysts say.
Bush, meanwhile, is likely to keep in mind that South Florida will be
gaining an electoral vote by 2004, when he faces re-election.
"Bush doesn't have any political capital to go against the status quo
on Cuba," said Max Castro, a Cuban affairs expert at the University of
Miami.
"All of this adds up to no light at the end of the tunnel" for
change in Cuba policy, he said.
In Havana, Cuba's leaders are settling in for a tough ride ahead.
"If the U.S. forgets about Cuba for four years," said one Foreign
Ministry spokesman, "it would be the best thing that could happen to us." | 