US-Cuba normalise relations to promote their national interests

Mohammad Amjad Hossain from Virginia, USA | Published: December 25, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

In international relations, there is no permanent friend or foe, but permanent interest prevails. This has been reflected in the decision of President Barack Obama to normalise relations with Cuba.
The Eisenhower Administration severed diplomatic relations with Cuba on January 03, 1961. Fifty-three years later, on December 17, President Obama and Cuban president, Raul Castro announced simultaneously the resumption of diplomatic relationship between the two countries.
The US broke diplomatic relations with Cuba when the latter became close with the former Soviet Union at the expense of the US. Since then US imposed economic sanctions on Cuba. The US staged the fiasco of Bay of Pigs invasion from April 17-19, 1961 in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. Then came the 14-day Cuban missile crisis, from October 14-28, 1962, when the world held its breath tensely fearing a nuclear war between the US and the former Soviet Union over the issue of installing Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuban territories. American president John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev, however, defused the crisis through negotiations.
Cuba was one of the blacklisted countries of the US, and any country receiving US aid was debarred from trading with Cuba. Bangladesh used to receive food assistance from the US under PL 480. But since Bangladesh was desperately in need of hard currency soon after its independence, it exported jute to Cuba. The government of Bangladesh was advised in September 1974 to cancel further export orders of jute to Cuba in favour of American food aid. In this context, Nobel laureate Professor Amartya Sen said, "Only after Bangladesh gave in and sacrificed its trade with Cuba, the flow of American food resumed".
 With the prospect of the opening of an embassy in Havana, the capital of Cuba, and reducing trade and travel restrictions, there have been positive reactions from American business community and Cuban expatriates, but the decision drew critical comments from the Republican Senator Marco Rubio, an American of Cuban parentage, who sits in the foreign relations committee of the Senate. His comments were reciprocated by another Republican Senator McConnell who will become the majority leader in the Senate from January. Republican Speaker of the House of Representative, John Boehner has said, "There is no new course here, only another in a long line of mindless concessions to a dictatorship that brutalises its people and schemes with our enemies". Senator Marco Rubio declared  that he would block funding for the proposed US embassy in Havana and halt the confirmation of an ambassador. Not only the Republicans but also Democrat Senator Robert Menendez, who is the present Chairman of Senate foreign relations committee, said, "President's actions have vindicated the actions of Castro government, virtually guaranteeing that profound human rights abuses on the Island will continue. This asymmetrical trade will invite further belligerence toward Cuba's opposition movement and the hardening of the government's dictatorial hold on its people."
But Republican Senator Rand Paul who is aspiring for presidential candidature of the Republican Party, holds, "The 50-year embargo just has not worked. If the goal is regime- change, it sure does not seem to be working, and probably, it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship."
The present dramatic development in the foreign policy of the Obama Administration has been possible because of 18 months of secret high-level meetings in Canada and the Vatican City initiated by Pope Francis. The decision was preceded by exchange of prisoners between US and Cuba. A US aid worker Alan Gross who was under custody for five years and a US contractor detained for five and a half years have been released in exchange of several Cuban spies.
In declaring normalisation of relations between the two countries, President Barack Obama said, "I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result. Moreover, it does not serve America's interests to try to push Cuba towards collapse."
President Raul Castro and President Obama addressed their nations simultaneously to announce the re-establishment of bilateral relations.
Observers are of the opinion that the present turn of events between US and Cuba has been largely necessitated by the Russian-Cuban agreement on May 16 establishing a joint working group between Russia's Security Council and Cuban Commission for National Security and Defence. This tie-up of collaboration was further reinforced by President Putin's generous gesture of writing off 90 per cent of Cuban debts in the erstwhile Soviet era.
Since the Russian Federation is now facing serious economic crisis, the Cuban leadership might be looking for a stable source of economic support, and United States has the capability to do so if trade is opened between the two countries.
It may be recalled that in February, 1972 President Richard Nixon revived diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, thus ending 22 years of cold war tension between the two countries. Possibly, improvement of relations with the US helped Chinese economy flourish immensely. Today, Chinese economy is the second biggest in the world.
True, improvement of relations between the US and Cuba will be looked at by the allies of Cuba -- Venezuela and Bolivia -- with disdain. However, the US may succeed in re-establishing its tarnished image in the western hemisphere which it had lost during the time of President George W Bush.
The writer is a retired diplomat from Bangladesh and former President of Toastmasters International  club of America.
amjad.21@gmail.com