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Protests in Cuba. How will the US respond?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, kicking off your week. A little Quick Take. Thought I would talk about Cuba, not a country we talk about all that often. Communist state, Raúl Castro just stepped down, and the biggest demonstrations across the entire country in decades. Talking about absence of vaccines, problems in healthcare, but also anger at the poverty, the economic mismanagement, the reality of the lack of liberty of living in a communist regime.
The Trump administration had put pretty significant sanctions back on after Obama tried to loosen up. I expect that this is going to make Cuba a bigger issue for lots of folks in the United States that would like to see the back of this Cuban regime. The question is, how does the United States try to address it? Does it shut the Cubans down even harder, make the country pay economically for the fact that they are treating their people so badly or does it use this as an opportunity to open up? I'll tell you.
I've actually done a fair bit of work on issues of sanctions and countries around the world, because there are two types of political stability. You have countries that are stable because they're open like Canada or Germany or Japan, or even the United States. And then you have countries that are stable because they're closed like Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Or like Gaddafi's Libya, or like Kim Jong-un's North Korea. And of course, Raúl Castro's Cuba. And if you are a country that is stable because you're closed, you generally want to stay closed. And the reason for that is because if suddenly you get lots of capital and movement of people and ideas and trade between your closed country and open countries around the world, the people inside your country want more liberty. It is harder to maintain political control in that environment.
We see that going on in Belarus with President Lukashenko. We've seen it going on in Cuba. It's why when the United States tries to move towards openness with Cuba, the Cuban government itself, they want the money, but they resist the idea of lots of foreign direct investment coming into Cuba because the United States is so much bigger. This is the advantage that the Americans have. It's not like the United States versus China, where you bring the Chinese into the WTO, but they're so large they still have the ability to maintain significant controls over what their people see and do and experience. And increasingly with technological controls surveilling the entire population, they can consolidate communist control even though there is a level of state capitalism and private engagement in China.
In the case of Cuba, opening up the borders would mean a massive amount of trade overwhelming what the Cuban government could have influence over a massive amount of tourism and the engagement with the average Cuban citizen would be much greater. I would argue that the reason why the communist regime has persisted for 62 years has precisely because they've been allowed to maintain isolation supported by the United States because of that sanctions regime. Lots of reasons for it, lots of Cuban emigres that were so angry at the Castro regime that would not tolerate any level of opening up of those sanctions, but those people are largely gone now.
There's a lot of private sector folks in the United States that would love to have access purely not because they're interested in liberty, but just because they want to make money in Cuba. I would argue that if you were able to take advantage of the size and scale of the American economy, its investment capacity, its trade capacity, its demand for things like Cuban medical expertise and the doctors and nurses that could serve the American market, I mean even the old Cuban vintage cars that would all be repaired and suddenly sold in the American market. The impact that would have for the Cuban political system would be immense. And I would suspect that you'd have a much quicker move towards regime change from the grassroots of the Cuban people, as opposed to the failed efforts by the CIA and others historically that never seemed to go all that well for the United States.
Anyway, something to think about. Certainly, a debate we're going to have in a more direct way in the United States because thousands of Cuban citizens are taking their lives in their hands by demonstrating across the country this weekend. Hope everyone's doing well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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A woman carries a picture of Cuba's former President Fidel Castro and Cuba's President Raul Castro during a May Day rally in Havana.
What We’re Watching: Castro steps down, US sanctions Russia, a crescent-shaped critter in Krakow
A Castro-less Cuba: Raúl Castro, younger brother of the late Fidel, is expected to retire on Friday as secretary-general of Cuba's ruling communist party. When he does, it'll mark the first time since the 1959 revolution that none of Cuba's leaders is named Castro. The development is largely symbolic since Castro, 89, handed over day-to-day affairs to President Miguel Díaz-Canel in 2018. It's worth noting that US sanctions laws do specify that one of the conditions for normalizing ties with Cuba is that any transitional government there cannot include either of the Castro brothers. So that's one less box to tick in case there is a future rapprochement across the Straits of Florida. But more immediately, we're watching to see whether a new generation of leaders headed by Díaz-Canel will bring any serious reforms to Cuba. COVID has killed the tourism industry, plunging the island into an economic crisis that's brought back food shortages and dollar stores reminiscent of the early 1990s.
US hits Russia with sanctions: The Biden administration on Thursday announced a new wave of US economic sanctions against Russia, in retaliation for Russia's alleged backing of the SolarWinds cyberattack against American government agencies and large corporations, and the Kremlin's meddling in the 2020 election. Along with blacklisting a few dozen Russian companies and officials, the new measures prevent US banks from buying new ruble-denominated bonds, a measure meant to inflict pain on the Russian economy. For now, bond markets seem not be too worried, but one big question is whether the US is able to get its Asian and European allies to impose similar restrictions, which would hurt Moscow more. The Kremlin, which denies any involvement in cyberattacks or election shenanigans, has pledged to retaliate. There will certainly be lots to discuss if Vladimir Putin accepts Joe Biden's recent proposal to hold the first US-Russia summit since Helsinki in 2018.
The Great Croissant of Krakow: The Krakow Animal Welfare Society recently received an alarming phone call. Sharp-eyed locals in Poland's second largest city had spotted an unusual animal of some kind, sitting in a lilac tree near an apartment block. They were worried about what the strange creature might do next. Residents speculated that it might be some monstrous bird of prey, or perhaps an iguana on the loose from some far-off tropical country. They feared leaving their windows open. When animal rescue workers finally appeared on the scene, they quickly discovered that the dangerous beast was, in fact, a large croissant. Word on the street is that it had fallen into the tree from the windowsill of some thoughtful person who wanted to feed any birds of prey — or iguanas — that might happen by. Officials managed to surround and subdue the two-day old croissant, and we assume they then released it back into the wild. But don't let the happy ending lull you into complacency, Signal readers. If you see something, say something.