Any Cuba deal must free every political prisoner and stop punishing entrepreneurs

Published October 30, 2026 10:00am ET

I left Cuba when I was 10. My parents took me to Germany in 2001, and I have lived there ever since. Part of my family never left. When I call them, the conversation follows a script none of us wrote: how many hours the power was out, which medicine the pharmacy no longer has, which cousin is thinking about going.

So when Washington debates Cuba again, as it is doing this fall, I listen for one thing. Not who sounds tougher, but who ends up paying.