By Patricia Lee Sharpe
Having dispatched Russian ships across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean for naval exercises with Venezuela, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev met with Hugo Chavez on his way to the recent summit gathering in Lima. The bad news for Russia’s ambitions in the U.S. backyard is that, over the past few weeks, oil prices have plunged, and the Russian stock market is going through very bad times, like others I could name. No one’s feeling flush these days, and expensive promises could be hard to keep. Still Medvedev plans to visit Cuba before his tour of the Americas is over. There’s no way he can drop in without bringing some nice little house gifts.
Meanwhile, China’s President Hu Jintao called on Cuba en route to Lima. China’s trade with Cuba is thriving. It’s worth some $103 billion annually right now, up from $10 in 2000. And yet, though Cuban President Raul Castro is said to have hummed a ditty from the Mao Tse Tung era, the visit of the Chinese benefactor seems to have prompted no anti-U.S. rhetoric on the part of the Cuban leader.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, when the life-giving IV-line to Cuba was cut off, Cuba went through very difficult economic times, which the U.S. attempted unsuccessfully to capitalize on. Now, not only is Russia back and China generous, but Venezuela is supplying the country with nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day at very favorable prices. At this point, U.S. sanctions have the hurting power of a gnat bite. If ever there was a time for Raul Castro to indulge in noisy gloating and Chavez-style U.S. baiting, this would be it. But no such juicy quotes have appeared in any of the news reports I’ve read.
Not even when Hugo Chavez was in Cuba, recently, for a pre-election photo op with his idol Fidel Castro. Chavez, evidently, was burnishing his revolutionary credentials by posing for pix with the master, whose post-operative frailty has reduced him to something like a figurehead in Cuba. Interestingly enough, Chavez did not spend the same amount of time with Fidel's brother Raul, who just happens to be president of the country.
This is fascinating stuff. The all but simultaneous arrival of three major benefactors certainly underlines the extent to which U.S. sanctions against Cuba, which always gave the U.S. more emotional satisfaction than real leverage, have outlived any small usefulness they may once have had. How tempting it must have been for Raul to use this confluence to stick it to the U.S., verbally, at least.
If no news is good news, the same might be said for no noise. Whatever the temptations, there was no vitriolic official rhetoric coming out of Cuba. Does this indicate an openness to improved relations with the U.S., despite the seeming plethora of open-handed friends?
If so, it is gratifying to note that the The Brookings Institution has just released a report advocating “a fresh approach” to Latin America, including Cuba. Thomas Pickering, co-chairman of the bipartisan commission which produced the report, notes that younger Cuban-Americans “are less interested in isolating the Castro government than in bettering the conditions of their families still living in Cuba.” Such sentiment goes over well in Florida, but there’s need for a little real politik as well. A more constructive policy toward Cuba might mitigate other influences