Contemporary Politics

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More continuity than change? US strategy toward

Cuba under Obama and Trump

John de Bhal

To cite this article: John de Bhal (2018): More continuity than change? US strategy toward Cuba
under Obama and Trump, Contemporary Politics, DOI: 10.1080/13569775.2018.1449061

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569775.2018.1449061

Published online: 09 Mar 2018.

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CONTEMPORARY POLITICS, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/13569775.2018.1449061

More continuity than change? US strategy toward Cuba under

Obama and Trump
John de Bhal
School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article examines the policies implemented by both the Obama US-Cuba Thaw; hegemony;
and Trump Administrations toward Cuba to evaluate the claim that Obama administration;
the ‘Thaw’ of relations between Washington and Havana represents Trump administration; US
foreign policy
a significant change in US foreign policy toward the island nation.
Despite the appearance that the change in policy is a
fundamental shift, I argue that the changes in US policy toward
Cuba under both Obama and Trump represent changes in the
means for pursuing the same historical objectives pursued by the
Washington for the past few decades. In other words, the overall
strategy and objective of US hegemony in Cuba is the same, with
the only change being the means for achieving these ends. The
central implication of this is that the ‘Thaw’ in relations between
Cuba and the US represents a new, more ‘consensual’ means to
instigating the same objective of provoking American-
orchestrated political, economic, social and ideological changes in
the island nation.

For close to fifty years, American foreign policy objectives toward Cuba have been any-
thing but opaque. Regime change and the ‘bringing [of] capitalism and pluralist democ-
racy to Cuba’ have been frequently evoked as the central precepts of US foreign policy
toward the island nation since the 1959 Cuban Revolution (LeoGrande, 2015, p. 483; Robin-
son, 1995, pp. 655–656). Since the 1960s these objectives have been pursued through pol-
icies of hostility, isolationism and coercion, as exemplified by the infamous embargo, and
countless covert attempts to undermine the Castro government. Such an approach see-
mingly came to a halt in 2014 when President Barack Obama declared that the US
would change its policy toward Cuba, ending five decades of staunch isolationism
toward the Castro regime. Indeed, the conventional wisdom in both media and academic
circles is that this ‘Thaw’ in relations represents a fundamental shift in US foreign policy.
For example, authors have used the language of a ‘dramatic shift’ and a ‘massive
change’ to describe the degree to which US policy toward Cuba was altered by the
Obama Administration (see, for example, Oppman, Fantz, & Machado, 2014; Shifter, 2016).
This article examines the policies of the Obama and Trump Administrations toward
Cuba order to evaluate the claim that Thaw represents a significant shift in American
policy toward Cuba. Using a neo-Gramscian conceptual framework, I argue that the

CONTACT John de Bhal debhal.john@gmail.com

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. DE BHAL

changes in policy employed by both aforementioned Administrations represent changes

in the means for pursuing the same American historical objectives pursued by previous
Administrations. In other words, the overall strategy of ‘bringing [of] capitalism and plur-
alist democracy to Cuba’ is the same under both the Obama and Trump Administrations;
the only shift has been in the methods for pursuing this objective. In Gramscian terms, the
shift in US policy represents a change to more consensual and persuasive means to pursue
American interests in Cuba and, as a consequence, any claim that the Thaw represents a
‘dramatic’ or ‘massive change’ in US foreign policy is a superficial diagnosis.
This article substantiates this argument by tracing the developments and changes of
thinking within the US foreign policy establishment during Obama’s first term, and then
by discussing the precise policies implemented by Obama after the announcement of
the Thaw in 2014, paying particular attention to the objectives that these changes in pol-
icies attempt to achieve. I then briefly consider President Trump’s alleged ‘cancellation’ of
Obama’s policy. Through this broader historical perspective, it becomes evident that the
Trump Administration’s Cuba policy is extremely similar to the approach taken by the
Obama Administration, as Obama’s most significant policy initiatives have been left
unchanged.
This article proceeds in three main sections. First, I outline the theoretical foundations
of my analysis by describing the neo-Gramscian literature that underpins my analysis.
This framework’s utility emerges from its sensitivity to the methods that the US has
used historically to pursue its interests in the Global South. This understanding of US
strategy illuminates how Washington has gone about pursuing its hegemony in the
Global South, providing a foundation to examine the policies implemented by the
Obama and Trump Administrations toward Cuba in order to determine the objectives
they attempt to serve.
Second, I examine the policies deployed by the Obama Administration toward Cuba. I
trace how the Obama Administration’s strategy began to shift with respect to Cuba,
especially in light of economic reforms implemented by Raúl Castro in 2008, which
resulted in the island developing a more market-based economy. The development of
Cuba’s market economy incentivised the Obama Administration to exploit and steer the
island’s shifting material landscape in a bid to provoke more radical US-orchestrated
reforms commensurate with American hegemony. Indeed, a policy of engagement,
rather than one of isolation, was understood by the Obama Administration as the most
effective method to pursue this objective. The change in policy was consequently
announced by Obama in 2014, and the rest of the second section describes the policy
initiatives of the Obama Administration. It does so through the literature outlined in the
first section and argues that the change in policy and the subsequent strategies that a
policy of engagement enabled lent themselves to a more effective pursuit of US interests
in Cuba, albeit via different, more consensual means.
The final section briefly explores the recent changes in US policy announced by Presi-
dent Trump. Trump’s announcement that he was ‘cancelling the last administration’s com-
pletely one-sided deal with Cuba’ (Trump, 2017), is misleading and inaccurate precisely
because the most fundamental and significant policy initiatives implemented by the
Obama Administration have been left largely unchanged. The historical and comparative
approach that this article takes allows for this elucidation.
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 3

US hegemony, strategy and the global south

The changes in US policy toward Cuba in the past few years have been fuelled, at least in
part, by considerations relating to its hegemonic project in Cuba. The term hegemonic
project refers to the efforts to establish and maintain a relationship of subordination
based on both consent and coercion. Since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the means for pur-
suing this American project have been largely coercive, as exemplified by the infamous US
embargo on Cuba. It is important to stress the distinction made by neo-Gramscian scholars
between the ‘means’ of American foreign policy, which are the policies themselves, and
the ‘ends’ which these policies attempt to serve (Robinson, 1996, p. 20).
Colás, Panitch and Gindin, and Robinson provide pivotal insights into the means used
to pursue the objectives of US foreign policy toward the Global South. Colás as well as
Panitch and Gindin, have theorised the objectives of American foreign policy in the
Third World and argue that Washington’s principal concern is to make ‘the world safe
for capitalism’ via ‘open doors’ (open capitalist, market-based economies for international
capital) and ‘closed frontiers’ (territorially-bound sovereign states) (Colás, 2008, p. 621;
Panitch & Gindin, 2012, p. 35). The consensual means for pursuing this objective are
often large injections of US capital into foreign markets, whether it be in the form of
aid or investment, used to conjure influence and shape ‘the process of local capital
accumulation’ (Robinson, 1996, p. 80). John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s Administration’s ‘Alliance
for Progress’ is the archetypal example of this material arm of US strategy in Latin America,
which saw Washington pour $20 billion of aid into the Western Hemisphere to garner
support for right-wing governments in the 1960s, who were seen as safeguarding the
project of open doors and closed frontiers. Meanwhile, for decades, US diplomats have
also been forthright about the political use of aid to establish American dominance in
the Global South, stating that ‘economic aid should be the principle means by which
the West [and the US] maintains its political and economic dynamic in the underdeve-
loped world’ (Black, 1960, p. 45). In other words, material considerations in the form of
aid, investment and capital have come to play a central role in US strategy toward the
Global South.
An ideological project accompanies and complements the material component of
American strategy. Robinson understands US ‘democracy promotion’ since the 1980s to
be the central ideological device employed by Washington to pursue its hegemony.
Indeed, the appeal of American attempts to promote ‘democracy’ are contingent on the
ideological aspect of the term. ‘Democracy’ is a universal aspiration and attempts to
promote it are alluring. Thus, ‘democracy’ has a critical ideological dimension (Robinson,
1995, p. 646). However, neo-Gramscians have understood the US as promoting a particular
type of democracy known as ‘polyarchy’ or ‘low-intensity democracy’ (Robinson, 1995,
1996, 2006). Robinson defines ‘polyarchy’, a term coined by Robert Dahl (1971), as a
system ‘in which a small group actually rules, and mass participation in decision making
is confined to leadership choice in elections that are carefully managed by competing
elites’ (Robinson, 1995, p. 647). The US also considers free market-orientated economies
as part of this definition of democracy and freedom. The US Agency for International
Development (USAID), one of the central instruments in US polyarchy promotion, explains
that polyarchy promotion ‘is complementary to and supportive of the transition to market-
orientated economies’ (US Agency for International Development, 1990). Consequently, it
4 J. DE BHAL

is more precise to say that the US promotes ‘capitalist polyarchy’ under the guise of pro-
moting ‘democracy’.
Moreover, as Robinson notes, societies that do not accept capitalist polyarchy as being
synonymous with ‘democracy’ are labelled undemocratic even though they could be
democratic according to other criteria (Robinson, 1996, pp. 64–65). Overall, polyarchy
means that democratic legitimacy is derived from democratic processes, rather than posi-
tive social outcomes, and thus social, political and economic spheres are understood to be
separate and related only externally (Robinson, 1996, p. 56). Consequently, in polyarchic
systems, the domination of a state’s cultural and material resources by an economic
elite can coexist with huge inequalities; polyarchy legitimises these divisions through lab-
elling these social arrangements ‘democratic’ (Robinson, 1996, p. 52).
In addition to USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been another
core instrument of US polyarchy promotion since the end of the Cold War. The NED is a
self-labelled ‘independent NGO’ which receives almost all of its funding from the US gov-
ernment and was cofounded by Ronald Reagan and Allen Weinstein when the CIA was
becoming increasingly controversial for its covert operations in foreign countries (Blum,
2002, pp. 179–180). Weinstein himself admitted that ‘a lot of what we [the NED] do
today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA’ (Allen Weinstein cited in Blum, 2002,
p. 180). The NED has a history of assisting and providing funding to right-wing opposition
parties in Latin America. The NED money helped fund the failed 2002 coup against the
democratically-elected Hugo Chávez in oil-rich Venezuela (Livingstone, 2009, p. 134),
and also successfully manipulated the 1990 Nicaraguan election against left-wing Daniel
Ortega (Blum, 2002, p. 182). It is relevant to note that USAID has been caught out for
funding opposition groups and destabilising democratically-elected left-wing govern-
ments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela that have implemented socialist reforms
(see, for example, Blum, 2002; Livingstone, 2009).
In other words, while USAID and NED act under the guise of promoting democracy,
they also act to destroy obstacles standing in the way of the US hegemonic project of
open markets and closed frontiers, as they cultivate support for the American dominance
in civil society. In promoting polyarchy, they seek to cultivate the ‘terrain’ on which US
hegemony can be established, whether this be through coercive or consensual means.
Another central part of this strategy is class alliances, or the creation of what Gramscians
have called ‘agents of influence’ or ‘organic intellectuals’ (Robinson, 2006). These are ‘local
political and civic leaders who are expected to generate ideological conformity with the
elite social order under construction to promote the [polyarhic] outlook, and to advocate
for policies that integrate the intervened country into global capitalism’ (Robinson, 2006,
p. 107). These can be private sector actors, market-friendly politicians or, the US can often
facilitate the creation of their own agents of influence through education programmes. For
example, the US often offers scholarships and educational opportunities to people in the
Global South in ‘democracy training’ (Robinson, 1996, p. 107).
During the Cold War, the US often supported authoritarianism in the Global South to
shore up its objectives. The shift to promote polyarchy is understood here as a shift in
American strategy, from coercion to consent. As Robinson articulates:
The purpose of ‘democracy promotion’ is not to suppress but to penetrate and conquer civil
society in intervened countries, that is, the complex of ‘private’ organisations such as political
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 5

parties, trade unions, the media, and so forth, and from therein, integrate subordinate classes
and national groups into a hegemonic transnational social order. Since social groups vie for
control over the levers of state power (and to put their agents into positions of proximate pol-
icymakers), and since the strength of social groups in civil society is a determining factor in this
struggle for control, it is not surprising that the new political intervention emphasises building
up the forces in the civil society of intervened countries which are allied with dominant groups
in the United States. (Robinson, 1996, p. 29)

Thus, polyarchy promotion does not signal a change in US objectives since the end of the
Cold War. On the other hand, polyarchy promotion is simply a change in the means for
pursuing these objectives.
The framework laid out in this section, particularly as it relates to the ideological and
material components of US strategy proves particularly useful in understanding both
the processes that led to the change in American policy toward Cuba, announced in
2014, as well as the strategies used by the US since then to pursue its interests. Its sensi-
tivity to the core strategies of US policy provide a framework through which to evaluate
the claims that the Thaw represents a significant change in American policy toward
Cuba. Through this framework, the thinking in the Washington foreign policy establish-
ment and strategies used by the US since 2008 demonstrate that American objectives
in Cuba are the same as they have been for decades: bringing capitalist polyarchy to
the island. The main change is in the means for pursuing this end. The subsequent two
sections substantiate this argument.

The evolution of the Obama administration’s strategy toward Cuba

A range of economic reforms implemented by Cuban President Raúl Castro at the begin-
ning of his tenure in 2006 loosened the Cuban state’s firm control over the island’s
economy, and ultimately provoked a change of thinking in the Washington foreign
policy establishment’s strategy toward the island nation. These ‘structural and conceptual
reforms’ were intended to develop the Cuban private sector, which had been negligible in
light of the government’s tight control over the economy since the 1960s (Aho, 2014).
Private and non-state sector jobs until 2008 were extremely limited, with these sectors
comprising almost solely of industries such as transport and hospitality, while job pro-
spects in them were limited to self-employment or employment of family members
(Peters, 2012, pp. 4–7). The reforms removed limits on wages and repealed the ban
placed on the sale of electronics like computers and mobile phones (Frank, 2012b).
Most significantly, Raúl introduced agricultural reforms which allowed farmers to sell
their products privately, marking the beginning of a significant change and opening up
of Cuba’s private sector. This agricultural reform saw ‘opening up unused land to
private farmers’ (Associated Press, 2008), and this privatisation of farm goods and land
reforms applied to 170,000 agriculturalists (Frank, 2012a). Meanwhile, other reforms
included farmers being allowed to sell their goods directly to tourists and other Cubans,
while the state cut 500,000 employees from its books, the idea being that these
workers would find jobs with private enterprise in the Cuban service industry (Frank,
2011). The main goal was to expand Cuba’s private sector (Font & Jancsics, 2016,
p. 148), and the reforms heralded new voices in Washington calling for changes in
American policy toward Havana.
6 J. DE BHAL

The Economist acknowledged that Raúl Castro’s reforms awakened US businesses,

asserting that ‘pressure is growing for a re-think of policy toward the island’ (2007). The
National Foreign Trade Council affirmed in early 2009 that there had been ‘marked
increase in interest among major U.S. companies in the trade and investment climate in
Cuba’ (cited in Israel, 2009), in light of the openings. A coalition of businesses, including
the US’ largest farm organisation, the American Farm Bureau Federation sent a letter to
President-Elect Barack Obama, stating ‘we support the complete removal of all trade
and travel restrictions on Cuba’. The organisation also suggested that ‘the United States
[should] engage in bilateral discussions with the Cuban government’, adding ‘we
should allow the forces of American culture creep into Cuba and then let the Cubans
be the agents of their own change. That would put the Cuban government on the spot’
(Boadle, 2008). In light of Raúl Castro’s reforms, US companies saw the advantages of
tapping into what was effectively an ‘untouched market’, while also promoting further
changes to make the island friendlier to US capital, with large US investments in Cuba’s
emerging private sector serving as the catalyst for the political changes that Washington
had longed for.
While this coalition of social forces united in pushing for a change in policy, their
struggle was unsuccessful in Obama’s first term for political reasons. A USAID subcontrac-
tor, Alan Gross, was arrested in 2009 for covertly smuggling military-grade telecommuni-
cations devices ‘to create clandestine networks for the reception and transmission of data
aimed at subversion’ (Whitefield, 2014). Cuban-American Democratic Senators and Demo-
crats in Florida demanded that Obama not take action, worried about their midterm elec-
tion prospects in 2010 (LeoGrande & Kornbluh, 2015, p. 380). This development stopped
any hope of a Thaw in its tracks especially as Democrats and Obama himself were seeking
re-election in years to come (LeoGrande & Kornbluh, 2015, p. 380). Despite this obstacle,
the Obama Administration took other measures to shape Cuba’s political and economic
model albeit through coercive, as opposed to consensual measures, including continued
funding for covert ‘democracy promotion’ efforts to promote regime change. The first two
years of Obama’s term included $20 million in funding for such programmes (LeoGrande &
Kornbluh, 2015, p. 371), with their stated purpose – according to a USAID contract – being
the ‘hastening [of] a peaceful transition to a democratic, market-orientated society [in
Cuba]’ (USAID, 2011, p. 3).
Although the arrest of Alan Gross made a Thaw in relations politically unviable, the
Obama Administration took an alternate path to exploit Cuba’s changing material land-
scape. Obama raised the limit on remittances that Americans could send to Cuba. The
White House outlined that the logic behind this shift was
To help expand the economic independence of the Cuban people and to support a more
vibrant Cuban civil society … [the policy allows] any U.S. person to send remittances (up to
$500 per quarter) to support private economic activity, [provided that they are not sent to]
senior Cuban government officials or senior members of the Cuban Communist Party. (The
White House, 2011, my emphasis)

More liberalisation of the Cuban economy occurred following the initial reforms
implemented by Raúl Castro. In 2011, the private sale of automobiles and homes was lega-
lised, while banks were also given permission to grant small loans for home maintenance
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 7

and repairs (Burnett, 2011). The changes meant Cubans could rent out their homes on a
private real estate market.
By 2013, estimates suggest that one-third of the Cuban workforce was employed in the
private sector, with the number of self-employed workers tripling between 2009 and 2013
(Henken, 2017). This transformation also provided further incentives for American
businesses, with the Wall Street Journal declaring in 2013 that these reforms had
brought about ‘new pressures on President Obama to allow Americans to do more
business in Cuba’ (O’Grady, 2014). These business interests were enticed further, when,
at the beginning of 2014, the Cuban government passed legislation to cut the tax rate
of companies from 30% to 15% in a bid to attract foreign direct investment (FDI)
(Trotta, 2014). In addition to this growing pressure from American businesses, policy-
makers in the White House were adamant that renewing diplomatic relations was the
most effective means to take advantage of Cuba’s economic reforms and growing
private sector.
A former US State Department official’s policy recommendation to Washington in 2013
indicated American intentions to exploit Cuba’s changing material situation and renew
diplomatic relations with Havana (Feinberg, 2013). The State Department official identified
Cuba’s emerging private sector and ‘wealth-accumulating’ class as having significant
transformative potential to achieve the US’ long-standing goal of ‘regime [change] and
rapid transition’ in Cuba (Feinberg, 2013, p. 49). The report recommended that the
Obama Administration change its policy toward Cuba, adding that ‘the US government
should engage its many time-tested tools to promote Cuba’s emerging private sector
and associated middle classes’ (Feinberg, 2013, p. 51). The report states that ‘such initiat-
ives would demonstrate the strategic vision and creativity of US foreign policy, appealing
to basic US values supportive of freer markets’ (Feinberg, 2013, p. 52). Consequently, the
author recommended that Obama renew diplomatic relations with Cuba and ‘treat Cuba
normally’ because ‘a historic opportunity beckons’ (Feinberg, 2013, pp. 52, 53). Meanwhile,
a USAID officer, who advised Obama on Latin American affairs, declared in 2013 that the
US should thaw relations with Cuba and remove economic restrictions in order to have
more effective contact with Cuban civil society, to work to create a middle class on the
island because ‘when a nation has a middle class they can become an important force
for modernisation. They will demand more open and transparent government …
middle classes in Latin America and globally are considered to have strong pro-democracy
preferences’ (Mendelson Forman, 2013). This dominant thinking in the Obama Adminis-
tration translated into policy, as the White House entered into discussions with the
Cuban government shortly after Obama’s re-election in late 2012.
The Thaw – the formally announced change in US policy toward Cuba – was announced
at the end of 2014 by the Obama Administration. The policy of engagement allowed the
Obama Administration to intensify and concentrate its material and ideological power to
orchestrate the transformation of Cuba. Central to this process has been loosening restric-
tions on US capital entering Cuba, as well as the establishment of a ‘polyarchy promotion
apparatus’, designed to complement and work in unison with US material power. Senior
officials of the Administration explained the logic behind the change of policy. US Sec-
retary of Commerce under Obama, Penny Pritzker, argued that the ‘goal of the president’s
change in policy’ was to cultivate ‘a thriving Cuban private sector’, which in turn helps
8 J. DE BHAL

promote ‘the emergence of a democratic, prosperous and stable Cuba’ (cited in Pritzker,
2016; Whitefield, 2015). Obama himself articulated the logic behind the change in policy:
Our original theory on this was not that we were going to see immediate changes or loosening
of control of the Castro regime. But rather that over time you’d lay the predicates for substan-
tial transformation … The more that [the Cuban people] see the benefits of US investment, the
more that US tourist dollars become woven into their economy, the more that telecommuni-
cations is [sic] opened up so that Cubans are getting information unfettered by censorship, the
more you’re laying the foundation for the bigger changes that are going to be coming over
time. (Obama, 2015)

The ‘predicates’ laid out since the announcement of the Thaw signal a change in strategy
to pursue the same American objectives in Cuba, as articulated by Obama himself. Initial
policies implemented by the Obama Administration aimed at loosening restrictions on US
capital entering Cuba in order to support the development of Cuba’s private sector. For
example, in January of 2015, the US Department of Commerce and the Treasury lifted
restrictions on American capital, most notably on exports of building materials for infra-
structure projects, electronics, software, and agricultural tools to ‘support independent
economic activity and strengthen civil society in Cuba’ (US Department of Commerce,
2015). The loosening of the restrictions has seen companies like AirBnB and Google, as
well as tourism-based enterprises like Starwood, enter the Cuban market. The tourism
sector, one of Cuba’s most important industries, grew 14% in 2015, owed in large part
to the Obama’s policies relating to reducing the restrictions on both tourism and com-
merce and their entrance to Cuba (Feinberg & Newfarmer, 2016).
Obama’s easing of travel restrictions has seen commercial flights and cruise ships
operate from the US to Cuba, resulting in significant increases in American tourists and
capital entering into Cuba. In 2015, the number of tourists visiting the island nation
rose 17.4%, translating to $1.94 billion in revenue from the growing tourism sector
(Veraz, 2017). For the first half of 2016 alone, capital from tourism topped $1.2 billion
(The Editorial Board, 2016). This in turn has increased pressure on the Cuban government
to improve infrastructure and it has turned to foreign investment to do so. In other words,
it appears that Obama’s change in policy has had an effect on the Castro government,
pushing it to further open the Cuban economy to foreign investment to deal with the
growing tourism sector. Although the full extent of these measures remains to be seen,
especially as American companies are still unwilling to publish figures relating to their
dealings in Cuba due to the embargo, the predicates laid out by the Obama Adminis-
tration indicate Washington’s intentions to cultivate Cuba’s emerging private sector as a
catalyst for more far-reaching changes on the island.
Likewise, US remittances have assisted in the development of Cuba’s private sector.
Obama once again raised the limit on remittances that Americans could send to Cuba
in January 2015 from $2000 to 8000 per year. Estimates suggest that one in three pri-
vately-owned Cuban businesses were created on the back of money received from Amer-
ican remittances (Padilla Pérez, 2014, p. 150). Estimates put the median salary of Cubans at
US$12-30 a month (Glenza, 2015; Rapoza, 2016), and large injections of US capital into the
Cuban private sector, funded and orchestrated by American wealth and businesses, could
see this minimum salary skyrocket. Already, some Cubans are reporting wages of up to US
$500 a month, with around one-fifth of Cubans making upwards of US$200 per month as
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 9

of 2016 (Whitefield, 2016). Indeed, Cuba is developing a class structure that has not been
seen in the country since the 1960s, and given the low average salary, injections of even
small amounts of US capital have the capacity to increase the average wage significantly
and serve as catalysts for more radical political, economic and social transformations com-
mensurate with US interests. Obama himself has recognised the power of US capital to
transform Cuba, declaring ‘economic changes [spurred on by American capital] will help
disperse some of the political changes [in Cuba]’ (cited in Obama, 2015).
Accompanying the material arm of American strategy, the Obama Administration also
laid out a polyarchy promotion apparatus designed to engage in ideological warfare and
compliment US capital in its bid for hegemony in Cuba. The opening of the US embassy in
Havana in 2015 is central to polyarchy promotion, as acknowledged by Obama himself,
who declared ‘having a US embassy [in Havana] means that we’re able to more effectively
advance our interests’ (Obama, 2016). As Main et al. have analysed, ‘US embassies try to
leverage unilateral and multilateral development aid so as to affect [political] outcomes
and pressure governments into adopting acceptable policy agendas’ (Main, Johnston, &
Beeton, 2016, pp. 484–485). Moreover, USAID Assistant Administrator Thomas Melia has
reiterated that embassies play the roles of ‘Democracy Hubs’ that are at the core of ‘the
infrastructure of American Democracy Promotion’ (Melia, 2005). The US government
admitted to the centrality of an embassy in its bid to bring capitalist polyarchy to Cuba,
stating that the embassy in Havana ‘increases democracy assistance’ (US Committee on
Appropriations, 2015, p. 93). Furthermore, in the case of US polyarchy promotion globally,
‘US embassies abroad frequently handle logistics for and coordination of NED programs’
(Robinson, 1996, p. 93). The US Embassy in Havana is thus the strategic ‘hub’ on the ground
that forms the basis of the US’ polyarchy promotion apparatus, from which the ‘tentacles’
of US polyarchy promotion efforts can spread throughout the island. The State Depart-
ment under Obama declared ‘through the opening of embassies [sic], the United States
is now able to engage more broadly across all sectors of Cuban society, including …
civil society, and the general public’ (Hershberg & Dolezal, 2016). In other words,
whereas previously the US had to operate covertly, as in the case of Alan Gross, it now
operates overtly in the process of promoting polyarchy. Obama openly stated this,
announcing,
Part of the deal … around opening the embassy was making sure we did not have extraordi-
nary restrictions on our ambassador and various embassy personnel when they’re in Cuba. We
want to be able to meet with anybody. (Obama, 2015)

Consequently, the policy of engagement allows the US to more effectively develop the
type of ‘class alliances’ that are central to its polyarchy promotion efforts in other countries,
accompanying the complimentary material component of the American push to transform
Cuba (Robinson, 1996, p. 37). A State Department cable released by WikiLeaks in 2009
reveals that the US saw the lack of a credible class or opposition as a significant obstacle
to creating US-instigated change in Cuba (Wikileaks, 2009). Indeed, American policy since
the Thaw demonstrates an emphasis on creating class alliances. During his trip to Cuba in
March 2016, Obama met with Cuban dissidents and entrepreneurs, with one such dissi-
dent admitting to asking for American help relating to ‘measures that would help their
fledging political movements’ (Diehl, 2016). Another dissident, Guillermo Fariñas, was
assured by Obama that the US ‘supports us and will continue to do so’ (cited in Eilperin
10 J. DE BHAL

& DeYoung, 2016). Given that there is no existing ‘transnational capitalist elite’ in Cuba
(with whom the US has previously established class alliances in other Latin American
states) (Robinson, 1996, p. 37), these dissidents and entrepreneurs are the most pertinent
actors with whom the US has shared interests, as entrepreneurs want freer markets to sell
their products and services, while dissidents desire polyarchy-like political changes. To
more effectively support these groups, polyarchy promotion funding also increased. The
US government dedicated $20 million to polyarchy promotion in Cuba during 2015
(Telesur, 2015), and this number rose to $30 million in 2016 (30M in 2016 to ‘Promote
Democracy’ in Cuba. Retrieved from http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-Could-
Spend-US30M-in-2016-to-Promote-Democracy-in-Cuba-20160102-0012.html. Telesur,
2016). This is compared to an average of $13 million a year from 1996 to 2011 (USGAO,
2013, p. 10). These new funds, according to the NED, have ‘fostered consensus and
cooperation among Cuban democratic players’ (National Endowment for Democracy,
2017b).
The NED has been very forthright about its intentions and its targets for funding since
the Thaw. It has declared that its principal objectives are to develop a
program that supports a wide variety of independent social actors inside of Cuba, from human
rights activists to independent farmers. This long-term approach demonstrates the NED phil-
osophy that the gradual development of independent initiatives will subsequently lead to the
breakdown of authoritarian rule and peaceful political change. (National Endowment for
Democracy, 2017a)

The Endowment has also been explicit about how it expects its influence in civil society
and Cuba’s private sector to have a cascading affect, having both material and ideological
repercussions. For example, the NED has declared that
these private actions [of the initiatives funded and supported by the NED] are a subtle, but
powerful, reminder of the everyday failings of Cuba’s regime. They also represent a
growing recognition by Cuban citizens that the answer to their needs lies in their own initiat-
ive and in their emancipation from a totalitarian state that, until recently, has legitimized itself
as the sole answer to Cuban ills. These new groups have become the central focus of NED’s
program in Cuba. (National Endowment for Democracy, 2017a)

NED funding has gone to Cuban human rights groups, media outlets advocating for
freedom of expression, as well as Evangelical Christian groups, which have a long
history and relationship with US foreign policy interests in Latin America (National Endow-
ment for Democracy, 2016). The group with the biggest individual NED funding package,
the Cuban Democratic Directorate, has explicitly outlined that its aim is
to promote greater access to uncensored information to Cuban pro-democracy activists and
facilitate greater communication among them. Radio content will consist of news and analysis
about events taking place in Cuba and around the world. Based on the programming, activists
will carry out community activities in defence of human rights. (National Endowment for
Democracy, 2017b)

Likewise, another recipient of NED funding is the US-based Center for International Private
Enterprise (CIPE), which has also been frank about its goals, stating its intention is to use its
funding to create market-orientated polyarchic reforms. In the organisation’s own words,
the ‘CIPE maintains that countries need to build market-oriented and democratic insti-
tutions simultaneously, as they are essentially two sides of the same coin’ (Center for
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 11

International Private Enterprise, 2018), and these same ambitions are reflected in its state-
ment on Cuba. In Cuba, the CIPE aims
to develop independent and objective economic analysis and policy proposals, and to bring
attention to the challenges faced by private sector cooperatives and small business owners.
The center will conduct a think tank mentorship and exchange program for two Cuban
proto-think tanks, provide strategic mentorship and technical assistance, and jointly organize
a forum to discuss and raise awareness of the difficulties faced by Cuba’s beleaguered private
sector. (National Endowment for Democracy, 2017b)

On top of this, the US has also gone about offering ‘democracy training’ through a range of
educational scholarships, much like it does and has done in the Global South to create
agents of influence (Robinson, 1996, p. 107). As Robinson outlines, the intention of
these programmes is to groom a set of US-educated elites that create a positive image
of US foreign policy in addition to becoming organic intellectuals promoting polyarchy
in their home state (Robinson, 1996, pp. 106–108). In 2016, Obama announced $1
million of funding to provide opportunities to Cubans to study in the US, while also
extending a range of existing scholarship programmes to Cuba (ICEF, 2016).
The NED and the Obama Administration attempted to open up ideological spaces
through developing class alliances and the grooming of organic intellectuals in an
attempt to establish capitalist polyarchy as ‘common sense’ in Cuba. This is commensurate
with the characteristic and tactics used by the US to pursue its hegemony in the Global
South as laid out in the first section of this paper. During Obama’s tenure, the programmes
funded by the NED, as well as the class alliances forged between some actors in Cuban civil
society thus have come to play an instrumental role for the US in a bid to bring capitalist
polyarchy to Cuba. Whether or not they are successful remains to be seen and will be
largely dependent upon the Trump Administration’s political will to remain committed
to Obama’s changes in policy.
On top of the initiatives designed to promote capitalist polyarchy, the Obama Admin-
istration also cooperated explicitly with Cuban law enforcement on a range of issues, span-
ning immigration, climate change and environmental protection. The ending of the ‘wet
foot, dry foot’ policy of offering refuge and residency to Cubans who flee Cuba is the best
example of this. Obama ended this policy, that was unique to fleeing Cubans, in his final
week in office as the Cuban government had demanded that this policy end for decades.
While this policy appears to be a wholesale concession to the Cuban government, it also
had a very strategic dimension to it. The Cuban American National Foundation announced
its support for the policy, stating that ‘people may be initially upset at not being able to
have this way of getting out of Cuba, but ultimately, the solution for Cuba is people fight-
ing for change in Cuba’ (cited in Hirschfield Davis & Robles, 2017). Echoing this sentiment,
Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy National Security Advisor in Obama’s Administration and the
leader of the secret discussions between the US and Cuba preceding the official
announcement of the Thaw, noted that this new policy would deter younger Cubans
from fleeing Cuba, thus creating more dissidents and pressure for changes on the
island commensurate with US interests. Rhodes said
it’s important that Cuba continue [sic] to have a young, dynamic population that are [sic]
clearly serving as agents of change and becoming entrepreneurs and being more connected
to the rest of the world. And, frankly, we believe that this change [the ending of the ‘wet foot,
12 J. DE BHAL

dry foot’ policy] is in service of creating more incentive for there to be the economic reforms
that need to be pursued on the island in terms of opening up more space for the private
sector, allowing foreign firms to hire Cubans, so that they can be responsive to the economic
aspirations of their people. (Benjamin Rhodes cited in Havana Times, 2017)

The Obama Administration also cooperated with the Cuban government on a range of
issues including anti-drug operations in the Caribbean, climate change discussions, the
protection of biodiversity and at-risk species, marine pollution and disaster risk reduction
(US Embassy in Cuba, 2015). In this respect, the Thaw also opened up a whole range of
cooperation efforts between the two states, often explicitly on the terms of the Cuban gov-
ernment. One commentator has noted that this type of diplomacy, and specifically the
promotion of scientific collaboration, was also a central part of Obama’s strategy to cool
tensions with Iran (Clegg, 2016), and such collaboration with Cuba was likely to be under-
pinned by similar motivations.
Overall, the initiatives, policies and strategies implemented during Obama’s tenure indi-
cate no serious change in overall American objectives toward Cuba; promoting capitalist
polyarchy was the central goal of Obama’s changes in policy toward the island nation.
Thus, it is more precise to assert that the only change that in US policy that occurred
under Obama was a change in the means for pursuing the same American historical objec-
tives in Cuba; the desired outcome was the same as previous Administrations. This is not to
say that there were not coercive elements to the Obama Administration’s strategy in Cuba.
Obama failed to summon sufficient support in a Republican-controlled Congress to lift the
embargo which the Cuban government continues to insist robs it of close to $700 million a
year (Pepper, 2009).

The Thaw under Trump

Weeks after his victory in the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump tweeted that his
Administration would ‘terminate’ the Thaw ‘if Cuba was unwilling to make a better deal
for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the US as a whole’ (cited in
Borger, 2016). And in June, 2017, Trump declared that he was ‘cancelling the last
administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba’ (2017). However, this character-
isation of Trump’s modifications to Obama’s policy shift toward Cuba is not entirely
accurate.
The changes made by Trump have come about as a ‘concession’ to the hardline Cuban-
Americans who have endorsed his presidency. The changes are minor in some areas and
more significant in others, but have been branded in a way to seem like a radical departure
from the Obama Administration’s policy as to appeal to this constituency. Nevertheless,
the continuities between the two Administrations’ policies are vast, while Trump has
made only minor changes to the policies that have been affected. First, American compa-
nies are unable to partake in transactions through the Cuban state, as this could have the
effect of providing the current regime with funding to consolidate its control over Cuban
civil society. However, even under Obama, propping up the Castro regime was never the
goal. Trump has insisted that Americans can only engage in private economic activity with
Cuban civil society, and that economic interaction with the Cuban government is prohib-
ited. The Trump Administration has declared that the Treasury has the option to audit
companies doing business in Cuba to ensure that they comply with the rules, but when
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 13

pressed about further details and information, senior White House officials deflected ques-
tions (The White House, 2017). How this policy will be implemented is unclear.
The second change is that individual American tourists are no longer permitted to
travel to Cuba alone. Tourism in groups is still allowed, but solo travel has been prohibited.
Every other type of travel, as authorised by Obama as part of the Thaw, is still permitted,
bar this one exception.
The effects of these changes are unclear and the consequences of them remain to be
seen. Critics of the Trump Administration have argued that the changes will deeply affect
the scientific, environmental and anti-drug collaboration efforts between the two states
(Reardon, 2017; Stavridis, 2017; Woody, 2017). Nevertheless, the Trump Administration
has proposed $10 million of funding to USAID’s polyarchy promotion efforts in Cuba for
2019 already (Gámez Torres, 2018), suggesting that perhaps all US efforts in Cuba will
go more towards ‘pushing’ as well as to ‘promoting’ polyarchy. While this $10 million is
a drop in funding when compared to the Obama Administration it is still a quite significant
amount of capital when one considers that Trump has proposed cutting overall funding to
the State Department and USAID by 25% (Aleem, 2018).
Apart from these modifications, the vast majority of Obama’s policy initiatives have
been left untouched. The central initiatives put in place by the Obama Administration,
most notably the polyarchy promotion apparatus, remain intact. Based on these obser-
vations and a comparison between the policies of both the Obama and Trump Adminis-
trations, it is inaccurate to label Trump’s policy and approach to Cuba a ‘cancellation’ of the
previous Administration’s policy. Indeed, both the means and the ends of the Trump
Administration’s policy toward Cuba represent an overwhelming continuity with those
under Obama.
Just as was the case with the Obama Administration, the embargo remains in place
under Trump. The current Administration’s discourse suggests that the only circumstances
under which the embargo could be lifted would be the implementation of more poly-
archic reforms made by the Cuban government. The other main coercive measure that
the Trump Administration has also utilised has been the discursive threat of reverting
back to the policy of old; that is, a complete severing of diplomatic channels between
the US and Cuba. The Trump Administration seems to understand this threat as a possible
way to force the Cuban government to instigate more radical economic and political
changes, but the Castro regime refuses to budge. As this article has suggested, the
actual possibility of the US cutting ties completely with Cuba seems unlikely.
The policy modifications made by Trump have been met with disdain by those in the
US and also leaders of Cuba’s nascent private sector, who have established links with the
American private sector and US Congressmen. Through US Congressmen, 100 members of
the Cuban business community sent a co-authored letter to Trump, asking him to deepen
and capitalise upon the reforms made by the Obama Administration. The letter’s purpose
was to inform the President that ‘additional [US] measures to increase travel, trade and
investment, including working with the U.S. Congress to lift the embargo, will benefit
our companies, the Cuban people and U.S. national interests’ (cited in Engage Cuba
Coalition, 2016). This is a sign that the forging of class alliances by the Obama Adminis-
tration was met with some success. The ramifications of Trump’s amendments to these
class alliances remains to be seen.
14 J. DE BHAL

However, Cuba’s emerging private sector was also met with some challenges in 2017, as
the Cuban government suspended some licenses for private sector activity. The
implementation of these restrictions arose amid rising inequality and tax evasion on the
island (Marsh, 2017). Despite this, Raúl Castro Ruz (2017) declared that the state would
not stop the ‘development programs’ that began under his Presidency. Whether or not
a direct result of the Thaw and growing US engagement on the island, there is increasing
contestation over Cuba’s political, economic and ideological future with the Cuban private
sector and the Cuban state having seemingly different ideas about the country’s future
trajectories.

Conclusion
This article has argued that the recently announced changes in US foreign policy toward
Cuba represent a change in the means for pursuing the same historical objectives pursued
by previous Administrations. The measures and policies implemented by both the Obama
and Trump Administrations demonstrate the deep continuities in US strategy, concerned
primarily with bringing capitalist polyarchy to Cuba, albeit through more consensual
methods.
Although I have argued that the Trump Administration’s changes in policy were minor,
the modifications have still been met with significant criticism by noteworthy members of
the US foreign policy establishment. Even one of Trump’s former-potential candidates for
Secretary of State, James Stavridis, has argued that the modifications made by the current
Administration are a step backward, and have the potential to undermine American
attempts at regional governance in Central America and the Caribbean (Stavridis, 2017).
Instead, Stavridis has argued for the Trump Administration to use more ‘carrots’ and
fewer ‘sticks’ in its dealings with Cuba. A more consensual, engaged and active approach,
according to Stavridis, will allow the US not only to be able to more effectively control the
changes under way in Cuba, but increase US-Cuba cooperation on issues like narcotic gov-
ernance in the Caribbean (Stavridis, 2017).
With Raúl Castro stepping down as Cuban President in 2018, the future of Cuba’s
economic, social and political arrangements appears unclear. With social contestation
already underway and being fuelled by American material and ideological forces,
Cuba’s political and economic architecture is deeply engulfed in questions marks and
uncertainty. Only time will tell the extent to which the US is capable of influencing
and shaping the future of the island’s economic, political, social and ideological
landscapes.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Shahar Hameiri and Tom Chodor for their invaluable feedback on
earlier iterations of this paper. I am also grateful for the comments and suggestions provided by Con-
temporary Politics’ two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 15

Notes on contributor
John de Bhal studied at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the
University of Queensland under the supervision of Associate Professor Shahar Hameiri and
Doctor Tom Chodor.

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