Good for City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern, as well as Tampa Port Authority Commissioner Carl Lindell, for joining a fact-finding delegation of businesspeople that visited Cuba.
Some pols still won’t touch this because it seems like foreign policy freelancing. Others, confoundingly, are still intimidated by a half-century of Cold War politics and the last vendetta vestiges of leverage still exercised by the usual South Florida suspects. This is a third-rail issue in 2009?
But more to the point, good – potentially – for Tampa. As Mulhern noted, “It involves economic development possibilities, trade and jobs.”
Cuba won’t be a windfall, but it can be a well-timed source of increased trade and port traffic. It defies business – and common – sense not to avail our area, with its Cuban roots and favorable geography, of such an opportunity, especially during such turbulent economic times.
But here’s hoping that these Tampa public officials, especially Mulhern, go beyond glad handing and business-card collecting. And, frankly, go beyond other — potentially influential — groups who went for the Cuban cachet and photo ops with Fidel Castro. The Cubans have long been visited by other American delegations from other port cities – from Corpus Christi to Mobile to Jacksonville – and Tampa is, regrettably, behind its competition.
The onus is on an elected official to do more than position Tampa for post-Castro, post-embargo Cuba. That smacks, candidly, more of opportunism than opportunity. The seeming nuance is not lost on the Cubans. Such a blatantly self-serving approach says, in effect, “Please, don’t forget about us when the time is right.”
With so many other American port cities better established, the Tampa message should be: “When we get back home, we’re going to lend our (appointed and, especially, elected) Florida-official voices to those calling for an end to the counterproductive economic embargo against Cuba. We’re going to use our forums and contacts to try and make the inevitable happen as soon as possible. We’re not content to say: ‘We’re now going to bide our time, but we’ll be more than ready to skim some economic cream off the top when Cuba finally opens.’”
Lest anyone think differently, Cuban officials are more than aware of who wants in and who wants to work to help make it happen.
In business, it’s called “following-up” – hardly a novel concept. When it comes to Cuba, it’s called not being intimidated by the usual exponents of the status quo.
You go, Mary.
A word, just a word, please, for the oppressed in the streets of Cuba, in the jails of Cuba and in their graves. Please don’t tell me that this mission did not in any way confront these Stalinistas with their crimes. Please don’t tell me that our representatives went to these thugs hat in hand without at least speaking a word for the oppressed.
How many words are ever said for the victims of the governments in China & Vietnam with whom we do business? For the subjects of the kings of Saudi Arabia and the various emirates who treat women as if it is 800 AD?
None, I’d wager. Yet we must apply a standard much higher than any used anywhere else in the world to a nation 90 miles from us that was our state’s principal trading partner? If Cuban Americans were honestly committed to freedom they would demand no trade with any of America’s trading partners who oppress their citizens much worse than Castro ever has. They’d refuse to shop at Wal-Mart for Chinese goods and ride bicycles for fear that gas for their cars came from an oppressive arab kingdom.
No, apparently Cuban Americans care only for themselves and not so much for the rest of America and its economic needs for trade. It’s time to end their dictatorship over our foreign policy and trade.