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Either way, letting more Cubans visit developed economies
like the U.S. and Europe, and putting them in contact for the
first time with free-market ideas and investment they can
take back to the island, could help further Cuba’s so far
tentative capitalist reforms and even lead to more
democratization when Raúl, 81, and Fidel, 86, are gone. The
travel reform in that sense is typical of Raúl’s larger bet:
that economic liberalization will save and strengthen Cuba’s
threadbare finances without threatening the regime’s grip on
Cuba’s autocratic politics.
But while that calculation worked for communist China, it’s
a bigger gamble in Cuba, where communism’s viability is much
more dependent on the personality cult of the Castros. Which
is why it’s ultimately more in the interests of U.S. Cuba
policy to drop the embargo and the constitutionally
questionable travel ban, laws that even most Cuban-Americans
now agree are relics that need to go. For one thing, those
measures have failed, utterly, to dislodge the Castros. As a
result, engaging Cuba economically—more important, engaging
the 12 million hapless Cubans who after half a century are
still paying for cold-war clashes like the Bay of Pigs and
the missile crisis—could help lay stronger groundwork for
democratization when old age finally accomplishes what U.S.
sanctions couldn’t.
Then again, if this is a season of 50th anniversaries, it’s
also a U.S. election season—a reminder that Washington is
still terrified of conservative Cuban-American voters in the
swing state of Florida. A reminder that Havana still hasn’t
grown beyond its anti-yanqui dogma and paranoia. A reminder
that both the U.S. and Cuba are still frozen in 1962, to the
detriment of the Americas.
