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Obama Lands In Cuba As First US President To Visit In Nearly A Century (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Barack Obama descended on Cuba with a pomp unmatched by the Pope on Sunday, becoming the first American president to visit Cuba in nearly a century, and the first since a revolution led by Fidel Castro toppled a U.S.-backed strongman in 1959. As he arrived, Obama used a Cuban phrase meaning "what's up?" when he tweeted: "Que bola Cuba? Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people." "This is a historic visit," Obama said as he greeted U.S. Embassy staff and their families at a Havana hotel. "It's an historic opportunity to engage with the Cuban people."
One of the many results of the new diplomatic relations between the two countries is the ability for Cuban residents to become more connected to the internet. Reuters is reporting that Alphabet Inc's Google is poised to expand internet access in Cuba. "One of the things that we'll be announcing here is that Google has a deal to start setting up more Wi-Fi and broadband access on the island," Obama said in an ABC News interview that aired on Monday. The U.S. Treasury Department has even authorized San Francisco's Airbnb service to expand its home rental listings in Cuba to non-U.S. travelers.
The US does business with countries like China and Saudi Arabia, so why would Cuba be left out in the cold?
I'm not a fan of dictatorships but I do understand the realities of the world. The USA can't just snap its fingers and reform China or Saudi Arabia, or even Cuba.
But what I'm talking about is using the historic, one-time-only opportunity of getting something in exchange for lifting the embargo. We don't have any similar embargo on China and Saudi Arabia, so they are not very relevant to my question: why did the Obama administration simply unilaterally drop the embargo without getting anything in return?
the national interest is best served by not having China replacing Russia as a major force in Cuba, which is exactly what will happen if relations and trade with Cuba are not normalized.
So, it's not worth making even the smallest effort to help out the prisoners of conscience? The one-sided deal where the government of Cuba gets what it wants, and the USA demands nothing, is the best possible deal?
Maybe it is. If so, I'd like for someone to make that case.
I do agree that China having Cuba in its pocket is undesirable. And I realize that really major demands (break the dictatorship and hold free elections, etc.) would never be met. But again, the appearance here is that the Obama administration granted a huge boon to the government of Cuba, no strings attached, and I don't understand why that's a good deal (or even the best possible deal).
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The mark of a true leftist, is that they always view themselves as the political center. There's always room to move farther left, and every who disagrees is to the right.