Iran, and Now Cuba -- Did Obama Skip 'Negotiating 101'?

President Barack Obama announced today that the US is beginning talks to normalize full diplomatic relations with Cuba. A senior administration official called it “the most significant changes to our Cuba policy in more than 50 years.” The White House will also re-establish an embassy in Havana in the coming months. Another senior official said : “We believe the policy of the past has not worked.” The official said that the President “has long believed that engagement is a better tool than isolation.” The move seems to be tied to the release of both Alan Gross, a US AID worker who has been jailed in Cuba for more than five years, as well as a US intelligence asset who has been imprisoned for nearly 20 years. The historic changes to Cuba policy will include easing travel restrictions to the country for Americans, with the administration saying it will permit every type of travel possible under existing legislation, but which may not include broad tourist travel. The administration cannot completely lift the travel ban, which would require an act of Congress, but a senior administartion official said they will be "authorizing as much travel as we possibly can." That includes broadening qualifications under a dozen existing categories, which should create only a minor logistical hurdle for travelers seeking to visit Cuba. The administration is also authorizing new exports to the country, and quadrupling the amounts American citizens can both import from and send to Cuba. Travelers to Cuba can now bring home $400 worth of goods, with a cap of $100 on tobacco and alcohol products. US banks will be allowed to establish accounts in Cuba, and American visitors will be allowed to use their credit and debit cards while visiting the island. Telecommunications providers will be allowed to build telecom and Internet services in Cuba, and the State Department will immediately launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of terrorism. In addition, the administration is lifting the export ban on some building materials, agricultural equipment, and goods for Cuban private sector entrepreneurs. The White House said the changes “will make it easier for Cuban citizens to have access to lower-priced goods to improve their living standards and gain greater economic independence from the state.” The new policies were the result of months of negotiations, sealed in a 45-minute phone call Tuesday between President Obama and Cuban President Raoul Castro. US officials say Obama authorized the exploratory discussions with Havana in the spring of 2013, and high-level talks between the President’s National Security Council and Cuban officials began in Canada in June 2013. In those talks, the US stressed that it would only be willing to make the changes with the release of both Gross, who was jailed for taking Internet equipment to the islandin a botched Obama intelligence foray, and the intelligence asset, who helped identify high-level Cuban spies within the US government during the Cold War. The Cuban government is also releasing 53 political prisoners identified by the United States. In exchange, the US is returning three Cubans who were convicted of spying on anti-Castro organizations in Miami. The negotiations in Canada accelerated after a personal appeal to both Obama and Castro in a letter from Pope Francis. The Pope urged the leaders to free the prisoners, and this fall the Vatican hosted a high-level meeting where the final details were hammered out. ~~~~~ The United States and Cuba have not had diplomatic relations since 1961 and the US has maintained its trade embargo on the island, 90 miles (140 km) south of Florida, for more than 50 years. Obama said he would ask Congress to lift the embargo, but the President will face resistance on this from both Republicans and Democrats. While a growing number of US lawmakers favor more normal ties with Cuba, most of them Democrats, after the GOP sweep in the November midterm election, Republicans will control both houses of Congress in January. Senator Marco Rubio, an American Republican whose parents escaped Cuba, said he would use his role as incoming chairman of a key Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee to try to block the plan and was committed to doing all he could to "unravel" it. ~~~~~ There are 1.5 million Cuban Americans, many living in South Florida. The first and second generations of these refugees who fled the terrors of the Commuist Castro regime, suffered great hardship in settling and rebuilding their lives and establishing families in America, and they are now the grandparents and parents of a generation of Americans who make a large contribution to all sectors of Florida's culture and economy. They are proud of their Cuban heritage, but they are profoundly opposed to the Castro regime. Today, they gathered in Cuban neighborhoods in Miami as news of the Obama policy change spread. They were happy to see Alan Gross released but generally opposed to normalizng relations with Cuba while the Castro-led government is still in place. ~~~~~ Cuba under the Castro regime remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent, according to the Human Rights Watch 2013 report. The HRW report said that in 2012, the government of Raoul Castro continued to enforce political conformity using short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, travel restrictions, and forced exile. In 2010 and 2011, the Cuban government released dozens of political prisoners on the condition that they accept exile in exchange for their freedom, but HRW says : "the government continues to sentence dissidents to one-to-four-year prison terms in private summary trials and detains others for extended periods without charge. The Castro regime also relies increasingly on arbitrary arrests and short-term detentions to restrict the basic rights of its critics, including the right to assemble and move freely." Cuban law limits freedom of expression, association, assembly movement, and the press. Concerns have also been expressed about the operation of due process. According to HRW, even though Cuba, officially atheist until 1992, now "permits greater opportunities for religious expression than it did in past years, and has allowed several religious-run humanitarian groups to operate, the government still maintains tight control on religious institutions, affiliated groups, and individual believers." In the period from 1961 to 1987, an estimated 15,000 political dissidents were executed. That number has fallen but today no one is sure how many political dissidents are detained or executed. The Castro regime reports that there are 214 political prisoners but there is no way to verify actual numbers. ~~~~~ Dear readers, because of a long list of misstatements, lies and politically expedient acts, and more recently by executive actions such as immigration reform meant to bypass a normally-sought congressional agreement, President Obama has so badly damaged his credibility with the American people that no matter what he does, his honesty is questioned. Today's action by the President to normalize relations with Cuba to the extent possible by executive action is yet another questionable act. It fits into his lame duck period, following the November midterm elections in which he lost control of the Senate and thus is facing a totally Republican Congress. Obama had promised the Hispanic community since 2008 that he would revamp immigration law -- he waited until the last election concerning him had passed to act, and without consulting Congress, which raises constitutional questions. Today, America and Cuban Americans learned that President Obama has acted to normalize relations with Cuba -- predictably, without consulting Congress. That Pope Francis was key to the diplomatic agreement does not eliminate the need for Obama to talk to congressional leaders before acting. As a result, and also because normalizing relations with Cuba is a very contentious issue in America and its Congress, with many Democrats and Republicans fiercely opposing it, the President will find it very tough going when he goes to Congress for funding for his executive initiatives and for a lifting of the Cuba embargo, something only Congress can do. Congress will certainly ask what Cuba is giving in return for Obama's extremely generous gifts to the repressive Communist Castro regime. Obama's answer will be "not much." As with the lifting of the Iranian economic sanctions, President Obama gives and gives but receives "nada, niente, rien, nothing." Obama must have skipped "Negotiating 101" in law school.