Cuba
Report: U.S. needs to encourage economic reforms in Cuba
The Center for Democracy in the Americas says the United States should
show support for recent reforms that could improve the lives of the
Cuban people.
Franklin Reyes / AP
By MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com
A new report says the United States needs to do more to encourage market
reforms and restructuring now underway in Cuba as the socialist state
tries to shore up its crumbling economy.
Although Cuba's economy is still largely state-controlled, under
President Raúl Castro it has taken steps to reduce the size of
government by allowing Cuban citizens to operate their own small
businesses and form cooperatives as well as ended some state subsidies
and begun phasing out others such as the ration card.
Other market-oriented reforms, such as allowing Cubans to buy and sell
homes and cars, were enacted this fall.
But notes the report by the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a
Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for reform of U.S. policy
toward Cuba, the big change announced by Castro — laying off more than 1
million workers, about a fifth of the state payroll — was "halted before
it ever really got underway.''
The report, Cuba's New Resolve: Economic Reform and its Implications for
U.S. Policy, was funded by the Ford Foundation and is the second in a
series of CDA reports on Cuba issues. It is based on repeated trips to
the island and interviews with government officials, economists and
other experts, and everyday Cubans.
"After fifty years of sanctions, and a generation after the demise of
the Cold War, it is incumbent upon U.S. policy makers to understand the
changes taking place in Cuba today and respond accordingly,'' the study
said, while pointing out that "the success or failure of the reform
process will largely be determined in Havana, not Washington.''
Cuba's problems, it said, "stem from the limited ways in which its
economy produces wealth, its heavy reliance on imports to feed its
population, growing domestic economic inequality, and the lack of
opportunities for citizens to productively use knowledge acquired
through advanced education.''
This year, the Cuba government is expecting economic growth of 2.9
percent. That's an improvement over 2010 when the economy grew by 2.1
percent, but Cuba still faces a difficult economic panorama.
The study notes that many in the United States question the sincerity of
Cuba's reform efforts and whether they are permanent.
Cuba experimented with economic liberalization in the 1990s after the
collapse of the Soviet bloc sent its economy into a downward spiral. It
allowed self-employment in 160 occupations, and by 1996 more than
200,000 Cubans had licenses to work for themselves. But as Cuba emerged
from the post-Soviet crisis in the late 1990s, it began to roll back the
reforms.
"Despite doubts on both sides of the Florida Straits, the evidence leads
us to conclude that Cuba's reform process is here to stay,'' the study
said, and it recommended that U.S. policymakers acknowledge that Cuba's
reforms are real.
For more than 50 years, the centerpiece of U.S. policy on Cuba has been
the embargo against the island in an effort to choke off the government
economically. "In the final analysis, ending the embargo and normalizing
relations with Cuba ought to be a foreign policy priority of the United
States,'' said the report. To lift the embargo would take an act of
Congress.
In the interim, the report made several other recommendations that it
said would send a "message of encouragement'' to advocates of reform in
Cuba:
• The president, by executive decision, should take measures to "ease
the flow of financing to Cuba and to spur demand'' for goods and
services provided by the emerging private sector. It said, for example,
that Obama could use his executive authority to further expand the
categories of Americans allowed to visit Cuba.
• The executive branch should clarify remittance rules because
regulations are vague and there is currently no mechanism for Americans
without family ties who want to send remittances to Cubans.
• Cuba should be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism,
which subjects it to economic sanctions.
• The United States should stop funding USAID Cuba programs to bring
about economic and political transition in Cuba. The report said such
programs are a waste of money and increase distrust between the two
countries.
Most analysts say that any change in U.S. Cuba policy is unlikely before
the 2012 elections, and South Florida Congressmen Mario Díaz-Balart and
David Rivera are both trying to reverse more liberal rules on travel
policy instituted by the Obama administration.
President Barack Obama has said his administration decided to allow more
remittances and travel earlier this year "to create an economic space
for [people] to prosper'' in Cuba.
He said recently that the United States would be open to a new
relationship but only "if the Cuban government starts taking the proper
steps to open up its own country and ... provide the space and respect
for human rights that would allow the Cuban people to determine their
own destiny.''
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