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Op-Ed Contributor

We Shouldn’t Ignore Cuba

Mr. Sabatini has worked on human rights and democracy in Cuba since the mid-1990s.

Miguel Diaz Canel, left, with President Raúl Castro during an event for the 50th anniversary of Che Guevara’s death in 2017.Credit...Yamil Lage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In the coming days, Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power will select Raúl Castro’s successor as president. The coronation by the assembly, likely of the first vice president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, will mark the first time that someone without the Castro name will govern Cuba since Fulgencio Batista fled the country on New Year’s Eve 1958 and Fidel Castro took power on Jan. 1, 1959.

As Cuba goes through this momentous transition — the government is planning to make the announcement Wednesday or Thursday — Cuban-American relations are at a low point. While limited discussions on antiterrorism and the environment continue, the mysterious illnesses of American diplomatic personnel in Havana have provided an excuse for the Trump administration to reverse the Obama-era détente and downgrade diplomatic relations to their lowest level since ties were established in the 1970s.

Little is publicly known about Mr. Díaz-Canel, even inside Cuba. He rose steadily through the ranks of the Communist Party from party secretary in Villa Clara Province. The most popular stories — likely floated by the government to paint Mr. Díaz-Canel as modest and modern — describe how he rode his bike to work in Villa Clara’s capital, Santa Clara; uses an iPad; and is a fan of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But despite the propaganda, Mr. Díaz-Canel appears to be cut from the Castro cloth.

Unlike several earlier heir apparents to the Castro brothers, Mr. Diaz-Canel has kept his head low and stayed loyal. A videotaped meeting last year showed Mr. Diaz-Canel railing against human rights activists and foreign embassies for “subversion” — language that could have been taken straight from the Castro playbook.

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First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel with a local resident during an election of candidates for the national and provincial assemblies in Cuba last month.Credit...Pool photo by Alejandro Ernesto

But even if Mr. Díaz-Canel harbored hidden desires to reform, he would have little latitude to change the direction of the revolution. The more than 600 National Assembly delegates, who choose the president and the Council of State — the highest governing body in the Cuban government — were themselves chosen from a list of officially approved candidates. Don’t expect a significant break from the past when most officials — including the aging históricos from the old guard — come from the belly of the revolution.

Moreover, the Castro family will continue to cast a long shadow on any future government. Though he’s stepping down from the presidency, Raúl Castro, 87, will remain the secretary general of the Cuban Communist Party (the only official party, which sets the agenda of the state), and he will keep his post as head of the armed forces, which control a large share of Cuba’s command economy.

And there are other Castros, too. Raúl’s son, Alejandro, is a key figure in the Ministry of Interior, which controls the police and internal surveillance functions of Cuba’s repressive machinery. Raúl’s former son-in-law, Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez, runs Gaesa, one of the largest military holding companies.

Economic policy is one area in which the successor to Castroismo may have some space to make changes. And change will be driven by necessity: The revolution has run out of economic steam. In 2010 Raúl Castro himself admitted that Cuba’s economic system was failing.

For those without access to the estimated $3.3 billion in remittances that come in each year from abroad, and for those who have access only to state stores and the ration-card system, life is bleak.

The economic lifeline provided by subsidized oil from Venezuela is drying up, and Cuba does not have much of an export base. Investment laws from 2014 intended to open up the economy to foreign investment are falling short of their goals. Even the much-promoted (though exaggerated) successes of the revolution in health care and education have been eroded by shortages and lack of state investment.

The major economic challenge will be unifying Cuba’s dual currency system, which uses a domestic peso and a separate international peso for trading with other countries. (The international peso trades artificially at a rate of one-to-one with the United States dollar, and the domestic peso trades at a rate generously assumed to be 24 local pesos to the international peso.) Unifying the currencies will cause upheaval in the economy, increasing the prices of imported goods and ending the double-booking system that many businesses use to keep themselves artificially solvent, leading to inflation and unemployment. Modernizing and advancing the Cuban economy requires addressing this wrenching change.

This is where the United States can come in. While it is not in America’s interest to promote investment to prop up an anachronistic, repressive regime, it is also not in its interest to stand by while a neighbor’s fragile economy crumbles under the weight of its failed policies. In the worst of cases, an economic implosion would produce social unrest and waves of migrants to American shores.

Multilateral banks like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, at Washington’s urging, could be given special allowances to offer economic assistance to the next Cuban government while providing international cover for American-led efforts. Any aid should come with a strong message from Washington and the banks that the Cuban government must refrain from repression in response to protests.

Doing this would require restoring the American Embassy personnel to its pre-Trump levels so that officials can have broader contacts with the government and with the population — as was negotiated under the Obama administration.

Even if incrementally, generational change is coming to Cuba. And whether or not Mr. Díaz-Canel wants it, the country faces difficult economic decisions.

Rather than not engaging, the United States should play a cautious, principled role in helping Cuba, and by doing so, shape its future toward more economic and political openness.

Christopher Sabatini is a lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and executive director of Global Americans.

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