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The death of Fidel Castro and the election of Donald Trump are very important points of historical transition for both countries. Where do you think they lead?
First of all, I should stress I’m a historian, not a current policy analyst. My focus is more on the past but obviously I follow events very closely, and in Cuba, as with many other policies, Donald Trump has been all over the map and no one knows for sure what he is going to do. Now, there are some contradictory tendencies, clearly, by going so far to the right. In his campaign he has become very close to anti-Castro Cuban-Americans and to the Republican Party, who strongly oppose the normalization between US and Havana as long as any of the Castros or the system that Fidel Castro put in place are still there. And several have already called for reversing the normalization that Barack Obama and Raul Castro pushed for a couple of years ago. Certainly Trump’s appointments would imply moving in that direction.
On the other hand, he has already backed away from some of his other campaign rhetoric, or indicated that he is not sure what he is going to do, and his strong business background might also lead him to take into account the strong interest of the business community in the United States to normalize relations because they have realized that the isolation of Cuba has left business open to European, South American, Canadian, Mexican companies, and the US is loosing a lot of business. And obviously tourism and other industries really want to take advantage of normalization and move forward.
Obviously, these are contradictory impulses and it seems impossible to know how it will turn out, but it would be an interesting clue to his broader direction as President because unlike some other acts, he does not need the approval of Congress or the courts. He has the authority as President to reverse the normalization process and to sever diplomatic relations, and he can do that with the stroke of a pen, but I suspect it will not be quite immediate.
I’m sure there is a great deal of uncertainty in Cuba, as there is in the US. Also, the Cuban-American community is much more divided, more ambivalent about the issue of normalization than it would have been 20 or 30 years ago when the generation that had left Cuba because of the revolution was much more numerous. The younger generation is much more open to normalization and closer family connection and greater tourism and things like that. So it clearly is going to be a change in tone but it is not exactly clear what Trump is going to do. And probably he doesn’t even know in his own mind. What he has done with China shows he doesn’t really care much about breaking diplomatic taboos, but if he is told there is a strong commercial interest in improving relations maybe he’ll listen to that.
Going back to the American people and the second or third generation of Cuban-Americans: how important is their perspective to the stance taken by the US?
The problem is that those who had a more moderate or ambivalent view of the normalization were more likely to support Hillary Clinton, and therefore those who had a much more strongly anti-normalization view were those who supported Donald Trump. Therefore they will have more influence because they already have connections. Trump won Florida, and there had been predictions before the election that the Latino vote, including the Cubans, would be much more anti-Trump than it turned out to be the case, so they will clearly have an influential saying. I am talking about the more extreme first generation or second generation that has similar views, like Marco Rubio who has very strong anti-normalization views. And so the Republican Party beats in cohort because normalization identifies both with Castro but also because it is an Obama policy.
On the other hand, the other Cuban-Americans could have some voice, but I suspect that will be less important than commercial and business perspectives like the Chamber of Commerce and other businesses supporting normalization. Even though they were ideologically Republican in many cases, they supported normalization because they thought it was bad for business to have the embargo, in addition to it not working to change the cast of the Cuban political system and providing an excuse to Fidel for many years where "the economy is bad because of the American embargo". I suspect the second generation to have some influence, but relatively little.
We see a divergent rhetoric in between Cuba practicing military drills and Trump’s postings on Twitter, compared to the business interests that are going on.
If Trump stops that – normalization – there is going to be a lot of angry people in the business world, and that is his natural constituency.
Shifting a bit towards Cuba, how do you think that the power vacuum without the authoritative figure of Fidel Castro will impact the country’s stability?
Fidel has taken a relatively back seat for close to a decade already as his health declined and he made the transition to Raul. But he was always a very important figurehead and symbol of the revolution, similar to Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War, who was the symbol of North Vietnam even after he had been edged aside in the day-to-day running of things.
Now, in Cuba, it is a really big question because so much of the leadership is geriatric, as the first revolutionary generation of barbudos achieved the revolution when they were so young at the time. But it is a real question whether that legitimacy such as it was – it has already been eroded by a lot of economic failures – whether that can survive and whether the next generation will either try to preserve this system or at least seek a peaceful transition towards a more open system, and that also depends on what Cuban emigrates want to do. Are they going to be dominated by forces that say, “we want to get completely rid of this system”, or do they want to put the emphasis on a peaceful evolution towards greater freedom?
In what historical context can we rely to interpret the future US-Cuba relations?
It is hard to come up with a precise analogue because for 55 years, the US had broken relations with Cuba. At the same time, it had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and it opened relations with Mao Zedong’s China, first in 1971 and finally normalizing in 1978, probably for pragmatic reasons because Americans’ self interest was seen as overriding distaste for the communist nature of those regimes. Cuba was simply not important enough. But I think the most important thing is that as emotions cool and you get more distant usually there is more willingness for compromise. But that is not always the case; look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example.
As with China, and as with other countries that the US has had a difficult relationship, progress in the relationship is inevitable. But it has taken an incredibly long time and there is no question that relationships will go backwards under Trump. The question is how much damage will it do, or whether the commercial impulses on both sides will override the political backsliding that can come. If Trump acts in an extreme way he will trigger extreme reactions from Cuba.
One pattern of history that has been true since the revolution, and much true of the Cold War dynamics as well is that when the US tries to pressure a country it often produces a counter reaction, as opposed to the other side caving in. One byword of the Cuban Revolution under Castro has always been dignidad. “We will not sacrifice our dignity for anything, even if it is against our self-interest”, as it often was, like having better economic relations with the US. So if Trump starts making demands such as, “we are not going to maintain relationships unless you release all political prisoners” it is hard to see the Cubans accepting. If anything, the extremists will say, “see, you couldn’t trust the Americans, even if Obama was willing to make a couple of things”. I think there is likely to be a rough passage unless Trump buys the idea of letting business flow and good things coming out of that.
In Latin America we have seen the deterioration of Venezuela’s economic situation and the victory of the opposition in Congress, Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in Brazil, the election of PPK in Peru and of Macri in Argentina… How do both the election of Trump and the death of Fidel Castro influence this counter-wave on 21st century socialism?
I think the entire left and center-left is in big trouble. Between Brexit, Trump, and the political developments mentioned, the question is how far is it going to go? Analogies made to the 1930’s and Weimar history does not repeat itself but it sometimes rhymes, and clearly there can be a momentum. On the other hand, I tend to think that individual country intrinsic issues and dynamics are more important than the discussion of transit philosophy from one country to another. After 50 years or more there may be a pent-up desire to try something else as opposed to a more go-slow, conservationist approach.
The Castro regime still has a monopoly on force and it is hard to see the 1989 dynamic of Eastern Europe taking place in Cuba. But I’m sure that is what the regime is preparing for, to try to head that off. Castro’s fear and Obama’s desire was that opening Cuba to American tourists would flood Cuba with American ideas, money, tourists, and that you could have a peaceful move towards a more open system that would eventually translate into political progress. And that is what the Chinese have always been afraid of, what they call Peaceful Evolution. And I am sure the Cubans are very worried about that, just as worried about a peaceful transition away form socialism as any kind of revolution in the streets, because they have enough safe guards to try to cut that off at an early level.
But we’ll see. History can surprise everyone.
Professor Hershberg received an A.B. in American History from Harvard College in 1982; a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University in 1985; and a Ph. D. from Tufts University in 1989. After teaching at Tufts and the California Institute of Technology in 1989-91, he directed the Cold War International History Project (and edited the project's Bulletin) from 1991-96 before coming to George Washington University in 1997 and now edits the CWIHP book series co-published by the Stanford University and Wilson Center Presses. He received the 1994 Stuart Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Policy for “James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age” (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993; Stanford University Press, 1995).