If the business lobbyists pressing Congress to lift the Cuban trade embargo needed a theme song, they would probably settle on the Rolling Stones’ “Time Is On My Side.”
President Obama’s unprecedented trip to the communist island nation in March, among his other actions to normalize relations, has turned their guarded optimism that the decades-old policy could be reversed to a dead certainty that its days are numbered.
“I think it happens in this Congress or the next one. It won’t survive after that,” said Marc Hanson, senior associate for Cuba with the Washington Office on Latin America, an activist group allied with business on the issue.
Business lobbyists pressing Congress generally agree, saying that political opposition to lifting the embargo against the communist-led country had weakened to the point that it will only take a concerted push to end it. Nevertheless, some say it may still take a few more years.
The issue may no longer be radioactive on Capitol Hill, but that has resulted in an ironic new problem for embargo critics: For a lot of lawmakers, Cuba just isn’t a big enough issue. And that is a problem with a Congress that has difficulty acting on legislation, such as budget bills, that it is required to pass.
“It is a market of 11 million poor people. It is easy for some lawmakers to be indifferent,” one lobbyist said.
Addie Bryant, chief of staff for Engage Cuba, a business coalition group, said that in many cases, lawmakers do not think they have a stake in the issue. “They don’t think it impacts them. They say things like, ‘I don’t have any Cubans in my district.”’
One expert puts Cuba’s exports at $18 billion and imports at $14 billion, which is sizable but nowhere near that of other controversial trading partners such as China. “There’s billions in lost trade because of the embargo, but not tens of billions. If there were, we probably would have ended the embargo a long time ago,” Hanson said.
Some of the largest business trade groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and National Federation of Independent Businesses, have long called for normal relations with Cuba.
Their hope is that the recent business investments in the island that have been allowed, such as Starwood Hotels inking a deal to become the first U.S. company in six decades to run Cuban resorts, will shift any thinking that Cuba isn’t significant. Lobbyists point out, for example, that due to the decades-long embargo, Cuba still needs the kind of basic roads and telecommunications infrastructure that Americans take for granted — something that several companies are eager to provide.
“I am in Texas right now meeting with businesses in the state and I can tell you, they are not indifferent,” Bryant said.
The U.S. put the embargo in place in 1960 shortly after Fidel Castro’s communist regime took control. For decades afterward, lifting it was a mostly taboo subject, with opposition particularly fierce from Florida’s Cuban expatriate population. However, tensions have cooled in recent decades. A March New York Times poll showed that 58 percent of Americans supported normal relations.
Embargo critics had their hopes lifted seven years ago when President Obama took office. As a candidate, Obama had called for “direct diplomacy … without preconditions,” arguing the hardline approaches against Castro’s regime had failed. Obama eased the travel ban during his first year in office.
About 66 House members, all Democrats, signed onto various bills during the 2009-10 Congress calling for the end of the embargo. But the issue quickly fell off the radar. Only six lawmakers signed onto bills in the 2011-12 Congress.
The issue was revived when Obama announced last year that he was re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. Later that year, he eased more restrictions on travel, commerce and investment. However, he did not initially push Congress to lift the embargo, saying that it “provides us with the leverage” to push the regime to further democratization.
Obama shifted later in the year, saying in October that Congress should lift the restriction. His March trip to the island included a delegation of eight senators and 31 congressmen, including a few Republicans such as Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota.
That GOP support is what has given the embargo critics the most hope. Previously, it was an issue associated primarily with the Democrats. But while there is now significant bipartisan support for ending it, lawmakers in the current Congress find it hard to work together even on the issues on which they agree.
Emmer introduced his bill to lift the embargo in June, and it has 11 co-sponsors, all but one of whom are Republicans. Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., also introduced a bill that has 31 co-sponsors, all Democrats. There is no substantial difference between the two pieces of legislation, but no apparent effort to join the bills.
“From a practical aspect, the progress that needs to be made to have sufficient votes on the House floor is within the Republican conference, which is why I think it is important that [there] is a Republican-led bill,” Emmer said. He added that he was working with Rangel on other, non-legislative efforts related to lifting the embargo.
One lobbyist explained that the Democrats were waiting for a signal from the anti-embargo Republicans that they will really pursue the issue, while most other GOP lawmakers were waiting on signals from their leadership that it is OK to support it.
If it isn’t done this year, the issue will be up to the next president. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton endorsed lifting it last year, and her top rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is a longtime embargo critic. Republican front-runner Donald Trump also has called for lifting it, saying last year, “Fifty years is enough.” His top rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is the son of a Cuban exile and a fierce critic of Obama’s policy, however, calling it a “tragic mistake.”
Linda Dempsey, the National Association of Manufacturers’ vice president of international affairs, is convinced that attitude is weakening elsewhere in the GOP. “We are going to see an evolution towards bipartisanship,” she said, adding, “I am an optimist.”
