In a change of approach with respect to previous statements about the current situation in Cuba, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio This Saturday he pointed to an economic opening as “a possible way forward” amid the growing tensions between Washington and Havana.
“I think that, without a doubt, your willingness to begin to open up in this sense is a possible way forward,” Rubio assured Bloomberg when asked if there was any type of solution for the Cuban Government at a time when the Trump Administration maintains an oil blockade of the island.
During an interview after his speech at the Munich Security Conference, the head of US diplomacy emphasized the economy as the key to the Cuban crisis.
“Leave aside for a moment the fact that there is no freedom of expression, no democracy, no respect for human rights. Cuba’s fundamental problem is that it has no economy, and the people who are in charge of that country, who control that country, do not know how to improve the daily lives of their people without giving up power over the sectors they control,” held.
“It is important that the Cuban people have more freedom, not only political freedom, but also economic freedom,” stressed the Cuban-American politician.
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“Opportunities” not accepted
Rubio asserted that the Cuban authorities “want to control everything” and “they do not want the Cuban people to control anything.” Furthermore, he said that the island’s rulers “do not know how to get out of this situation” and have not “accepted” the “opportunities” offered from Washington.
“To the extent that they have been offered opportunities to do so, they do not seem to be able to understand or accept it in any way. They would rather be in charge of the country than allow it to prosper,” he said, although without detailing whether he was referring to recent negotiations or previous moments in bilateral relations.
Donald Trump has said on several occasions that his Government has been in dialogue with the island’s authorities in recent weeks, something that Havana has deniedalthough it has acknowledged “message exchanges.” Now, Rubio did not elaborate on this during the interview.
The Secretary of State insisted that Cuba’s economic model does not work and “has never worked anywhere else in the world,” and the island does not have “a real economic policy.”
“The problem is that in Cuba they lose money. They never pay their bills. They never end up paying. It never ends up working,” he pointed out. Bloomberg.
“There were European countries that went to Cuba and made what they believed were investments in certain sectors, only to have their contracts canceled and them kicked out because the Cuban regime does not have a basic understanding of how business and industry works, and people are suffering as a result,” he added.
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No mention of sanctions
In the interview, in which he addressed other aspects of the current international scenario, Marco Rubio acknowledged that currently “Cuba is facing a very serious situation”, but without mentioning the impact that the US sanctions and embargo have on it, nor the current oil blockade of his Government, put in place after the attack on Venezuela on January 3.
On the contrary, he attributed the current situation to Havana’s economic incapacity and the end of subsidies from other countries to the island.
“Remember that this is a regime that has survived almost entirely thanks to subsidies, first from the Soviet Union, then from Hugo Chávez, and now, for the first time, it does not receive subsidies from anyone, and the model has been exposed,” he considered.
In this context, “there has to be that opening” of the economy, he reiterated.
Rubio recalled that the US has been providing humanitarian aid “directly” to the victims of Hurricane Melissa through the Catholic Church and that his Government recently announced an increase in that assistance, a decision that Havana described as “hypocritical” in the midst of the current US pressure against the island.
“That is something that we are willing to continue exploring, but obviously it is not a long-term solution to the island’s problems,” he said about the delivery of aid.
Reactions
Although until now neither the Foreign Ministry nor the Cuban Government had issued comments or statements about what Marco Rubio said this Saturday, his words have already had reactions on social networks.
Former US congressman Joe García, who has advocated both for changes on the island and in Washington’s policy towards Cuba, considered that the change in approach now presented by Rubio “is the most sensible, prudent and humane path: to promote change through an economic solution.”
“In a way, this is what the Cuban regime has tried to implement, but has failed due to ineptitude and fear of losing control,” said in statements to New Herald.
A publication by García himself on his networks, in which he posted these statements, opened the door to debate among several Internet users, among them the former Cuban diplomat and analyst Carlos Alzugaray and the academic and political scientist Arturo López-Levy.
“It was not what he had said until now,” Alzugaray considered about what the Secretary of State said, and pointed out that although he does not have confidence in his words, he does not rule out a change in his speech motivated by several aspects, among which he mentioned the possibility that the US considers that “it is not possible to repeat in Cuba the tactics followed in Venezuela” and that without a figure like Delcy Rodríguez on the island, they must accept and “offer something” to the Cuban Government.
In addition, he also assessed the possibility that Trump does not like “Marco Rubio’s original idea (which María Elvira, Carlos Jiménez, Díaz Balart, Rick Scott and others have repeated) of causing a collapse that leads to chaos that no Cuban can control.”
For his part, López-Levy was more distrustful of Rubio given Washington’s current pressure on the island and considered his words a “distraction” and a “trick.”
“To promote a different economic model of reform, what the US has to do is lift all sanctions that are not strictly against specific human rights violators. The US and particularly the group that Rubio represents is committed to a regime change imposed from outside, which blocks even prosperous capitalism in Cuba,” he said.
In his opinion “the tactic is easily traceable, talking about false negotiations, using maximalist techniques to then lower something, but the objective is to delay the pain with distractions to stop the reaction to the humanitarian crisis that they are creating as much as they can, so that hunger and desperation lead to chaos and instability with the bet that the government falls.”
“From there does not come a gradual and peaceful transition, nor a sovereign one to a better country, in line with international law and the universal declaration of human rights. Beware of distraction and tricks,” he concluded.
