*For President Barack Obama, the recent Summit of the Americas–the first one in three years–was a mixed bag for the United States.
Simply seated among leaders of more than 30 hemispheric countries, Obama reinforced the message that this country, albeit the world’s pre-eminent super power, not only identifies with its neighbors but finds serious common cause–ranging from trade positions and energy policies to drug-trafficking concerns. No matter that there were non-agenda subplots–from liberal, union and GOP spin back home on the trade pact with Colombia to the rapidly-increasing economic influence of China in Brazil, Chile, Peru and the Caribbean to apparently appalling behavior by an advance team of Secret Service agents asking who they can do for their country while in Cartagena, Colombia.
But there was one constant. The one that keeps that hemispheric bag mixed. The one that reminds all of Latin America that this country, for all of its inclusive rhetoric and good will, for all of its regional outreach, cooperative efforts and economic heft, is still out of sync with its neighbors–and the rest of the world–when it comes to Cuba. And has been for the better part of a half century.
Not only is the Cuban trade embargo still in effect, unfettered travel still disallowed and diplomatic relations still not normalized, but the U.S. once again has refused to budge on even allowing Cuba to attend the Summit of the Americas. Only Canada, seemingly content to act the geopolitical lapdog, went along with the U.S. position to veto Cuban participation in future summits.
Ironically, Obama dismissed some of the inevitable tensions in the region as unfortunate artifacts from the past. He likened the context to an unhelpful “time warp,” one that harkened back to the bad old days of “gunboat diplomacy and yanquis and the Cold War. … This is not the world we live in today,” the president underscored.
Except for that glaring anachronism that tells the rest of the Americas that vendetta politics out of South Florida counts so much more than what every sovereign not named Canada or America thinks is the right thing to do. It makes Obama sound disingenuous in reminding attendees that we’re not the high-handed yanquis of yesteryear. And it reminds everyone still listening that we still reserve the right to cherry pick the world for those so resistant to democracy they don’t warrant official acknowledgement, much less regional summit invitations.
“There is no justification for that path that has us anchored in a Cold War overcome now for several decades,” stated Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, the summit host. It’s one thing when leftist governments in Bolivia and Venezuela push for Cuba’s inclusion, an entirely different dynamic when the Colombian president calls for it.
* America’s Cuban policy is, of course, largely an extension of previous administrations’ policies. The most significant difference: a sense that Obama really knows better. But once he had passed on the low-hanging geopolitical Cuban fruit after his inauguration, he signaled that pragmatic politics under his presidency would preclude major change in policy.
* Much was made of President Obama’s quasi-campaigning/export-touting Port of Tampa stop on his way to Cartagena. Among other comments in his brief presentation last Friday, the president noted Tampa’s historic ties to Latin America and stressed that “a lot of the business being done here (at the port) has to do with trade between us and Latin America. So the fact that it (exports) has gone up 46 percent since 2009 is a big deal for Tampa. In Florida, exports to this region are up nearly30 percent.”
Ironically, two of the prime beneficiaries of normalized trade relations with Cuba would be the state of Florida and the Port of Tampa. While the Cartagena Summit would highlight the geopolitical cost of America’s arrogant, Cold War Cuban policy, the Port of Tampa still symbolizes its counterproductive economic impact. Talk about a “time warp.”
* You know things aren’t going well for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez when he opts to skip the summit, send his foreign minister in his place and return to Cuba for cancer treatment. This would have been his kind of forum–and his kind of confrontation with Obama.