Last week an agreement between the U.S. and Cuba to end a sixty year freeze on relations ended. Canada and the Vatican had been working in secret with U.S. and Cuban representatives in order to end a freeze on relations that has lasted three generations.
Over the past year, the Obama administration has repeatedly answered criticism of its lack of progress on Cuba with the excuse that Havana has not responded in kind to any overtures Washington has tried to make (it has the distinct feel of the classic “he started it” argument). In fact, recent statements by top officials […]
The “vicious circle” is, as Dalia Acosta and others have written, a pattern that has been repeated over and over during the history of Cuba in the last decades: the seemingly inevitable cycle of relaxing and tightening among the governments of Cuba, the United States and the European Union. The reasons for the vicious circle are […]
The U.S. Treasury Department has made a rule change that it says will help people in Iran, Sudan, and Cuba communicate with the outside world. An amendment made this week will make it possible for American companies to acquire general licenses for exportation of personal Internet-based communications services, such as instant messaging and chat, to these […]
Republican Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (Florida) is one of the staunchest congressional supporters of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. In a noon conference today, Diaz-Balart announced that he would not run again in his Florida election district: he will retire from politics and return to practicing law. In that context, he said, he would work […]
Perhaps even more than Cubans would like to see normalization of relations with the United States, they would like to see full normalization of relations with Cuban emigrants—the friends and family members who have moved abroad but maintain connections to the island, and oftentimes send money and goods back to those who remain. For years […]