Short of Jorge Mas Canosa arising from
the dead and saying, “Never mind,” it’s hard to think of a bigger shift in the
Miami political landscape than the news that the Fanjul brothers have traveled
to Cuba and would like to invest there.
The Fanjuls are known for doing
very well in sugar, a government-dependent, even socialist sector of the U.S.
economy. They are also known for prodigious
campaign contributions that support their sugar interests, and for being
long-time, stalwart supporters of U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba.
In all this, they do not seek or
need publicity.
When it comes to Cuba, they are of
the generation that plans to return only “cuando
se vayan aquellos,” i.e. when the Castros have gone. That generation has put legislation on the
books that quite literally prevents the United States from normalizing
relations until those two have indeed gone.
The Fanjuls’ 2012 and 2013 trips
to Cuba were not a secret. By all
accounts there, their message was simple and consistent: they
expressed no interest in recovering property, and a clear interest in helping
to revive the sugar sector.
Now Alfy Fanjul has chosen to make
this known, in all places, in the pages of the Washington
Post. He does so two months after
President Obama said
in Miami that “we have to update our policies” toward Cuba, and a month
before Cuba is to announce long-awaited norms to attract more foreign
investment.
Alfy says that his “interest is
finding a way to unite the Cuban family.”
U.S. investments in Cuba are not legal now, and Cuba’s laws are not necessarily
attractive enough to draw them. But, he
says, “One day we hope that the United States and Cuba would find a way so the
whole Cuban community could be able to live and work together.”
It’s as if he is inviting everyone
to declare victory – el exilio for
the comprehensive U.S. sanctions, Cuba for surviving them and everything else
Washington threw its way for 50 years – and then to look at the next task,
which is to build a more prosperous Cuba with help from outside. Practical and magnanimous.
The seismic importance of the
Fanjuls’ shift can be measured in the hysterical reactions of Republican Reps. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and Mario
Diaz-Balart. (Sen. Marco
Rubio, thinking presidentially these days, merely expressed “disappointment”
through a spokesman.)
I don’t blame them. For 50 years, these guys have been inside
their tent shooting out, and now they’re outside shooting in. The importance of Cuban American hard-liners
in Presidential politics is already diminished by the fact that other Latinos
are increasingly numerous and important in the Florida electorate, and by the
fact that Obama and Romney split the Cuban-American vote evenly in 2012. Demography and the actuarial tables are not
the hard-liners’ friends.
Now, the last remaining advantage –
campaign cash – begins to look like a paper tiger too if even the Fanjuls are
hoping that the United States and Cuba can “find a way.”
And closer to the heart, the very idea
of el exilio is being drained of
meaning first by the massive flow of Cuban Americans and their money, and now
by the interest of prominent Cuban American business leaders in participating
in the Cuban economy.
In Iran, President Obama is
pursuing a high-stakes, high-gain vision that looks beyond the urgent issue of
nuclear development and focuses on the strategic aim of rebuilding relations
between two great nations. Bravely, he
has set domestic politics aside.
On Cuba, the President eloquently
explains how anachronistic our policies are, does little, and seems to be
thinking only of small-bore changes.
Meantime, history and our entire American
neighborhood call on the United States to think and act big.
Animo, Alfy.
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