It has been over sixty-five years since Fidel Castro entered the scene and almost a decade since he died. His brother Raúl stepped down as head of Cuba’s Communist Party and is now in retirement. Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is the first non-Castro leader of Cuba since the revolution. Things have changed, and it is finally time for the never-ending, unnecessary drama between our two countries to end.

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The United States should lift the misguided, antiquated U.S. trade embargo against Cuba at once. In exchange, President Díaz-Canel should agree to significant concessions, like releasing political prisoners, eliminating restrictions that discourage private investment and business, removing restrictions on the press and other types of free expression – and hopefully and eventually holding free elections.

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It’s time. The steps taken by the Obama administration to restore diplomatic ties between the two countries was a necessary first step but didn’t go far enough. Although President Obama’s new rules allowed certain American businesses to trade with Cuba, the embargo continued to ban most Cuban exports, prohibit American tourism, and make banking almost impossible. This paradox creates confusion and makes potential investors uneasy.  

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In his first administration, Donald Trump erased even those minor concessions, restoring travel restrictions on Americans and re-instituting constraints on U.S. investments and commercial dealings in the country.  He also limited the amount of money that Cuban Americans can send back to Cuba; established even stricter travel restrictions on U.S. citizens; and sanctioned government officials who allowed medical professionals to work abroad.

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For decades, Cuba has sent doctors to other countries as good-will ambassadors, as well as to make money. Even though the number of these professionals has fallen by over half in the past ten years, there are still roughly 24,000 of them working in over fifty countries– including as many as 1,500 of them working in the Caribbean.

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Now, in his second administration, Donald Trump picked up right where he left off, but worse. Secretary of State Marco Rubio – the son of Cuban migrants who fled the island before Fidel Castro’s revolution seized power – has characterized the work of the Cuban doctors abroad as “forced labor,” and said that any Cuban officials involved in the medical program will have their visas to the United States revoked. This time, the policy not only affects the officials but their families as well. It also puts pressure on Caricom, a group of twenty-one countries (fifteen member states and six associate members) in the Caribbean.

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This official reasoning makes ZERO sense. The Cuban government does, in fact, take a cut of what the medical professionals make from other governments, but their take-home pay is considerably more than it would be back in Cuba.

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Beyond that, Caribbean countries need this medical help desperately. … to the point where some Caribbean leaders have said they would forgo their U.S. visas if it came to that. Prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves is one: “I would prefer to lose my visa than to have sixty poor and working people die.”

 

This makes us look like total jerks.