CubaTrade-May2017-Flipbook

WASHINGTON REPORT
x
BRINGING IN THE BRASS
Retired U.S. military leaders are now urging the
Trump administration to engage with Cuba
By Ana Radelat
Photo courtesy of American Security Project
American Security Project staffers and retired military leaders visit a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) building in Cuba.
Sixteen retired American admirals and
generals, some of whom made a four-day
visit to Cuba in March, are now urging
the Trump administration to continue
normalizing relations with the island for
the sake of U.S. national security.
The retired generals are all members
of the American Security Project,
which counts former Secretary of State
John Kerry and two former U.S. senators,
Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Gary Hart
(D-Colo.) among its founders. The group
sent a letter to National Security Advisor
H.R. McMaster in April advising that
Cuba’s location in the Caribbean makes it
a natural strategic partner.
The retired brass want the Trump
administration to secure “low-level cooperation”
with Havana on numerous issues,
including terrorism, border control, drug
interdiction, environmental protections,
and emergency preparedness. “Ensuring
Cuba’s economic stability will further U.S
security interests in the Western Hemisphere,
particularly given the challenges
facing certain of our neighbors in Latin
America,” they wrote.
“If we fail to engage economically
and politically, it is certain that China,
Russia, and other entities whose interests
are contrary to the United States’ will rush
into the vacuum,” the letter said. “We have
an opportunity now to shape and fill a
strategic void.”
The military’s arguments for engagement
are not new, but they come at
a unique time. Since President Trump
assumed office, all official U.S.-Cuba
talks have stopped, pending a “bottom-up
review” the new administration is conducting
of former President Obama’s
opening to Cuba. Marine Corps Gen.
Stephen Cheney said the officers decided
to step in now––while that policy was still
in flux––to say that “you need to take all
these factors into consideration. Don’t just
look at it as something Obama did it, and
because Obama did it you hate it.”
Some of the retired officers spent four
days in Havana speaking to Cuban officials,
including those of Cuba's Interior Ministry.
Cheney said, “things have really opened
up” since Obama moved to normalize relations
in late 2014, and that “our fear is that
it will revert to the way it was in 2013.”
Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Castellaw
observed that Cuba no longer poses
a military threat to the United States. “The
world has changed,” he said. “Cuba is no
longer a player in the coalition we defeated
in the Cold War. We must move on.”
The Pentagon has cultivated a
relationship with its Cuban counterpart
since 1994, after a rafter crisis forced the
U.S. base in Guantánamo (at a cost of $1
million a day) to open a camp for Cuban
migrants the U.S. tried to repatriate. At
that time, Marine Corps Gen. John Sheehan
began “fence talks” with senior Cuban
officers across no-man’s land.
“The U.S. military has been for more
than 20 years one of the greatest advocates
for normal relations,” Peter Kornbluh, the
author of Back Channel to Cuba, told Cuba
Trade. To this day, a Coast Guard officer
assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Havana
serves as liaison with the Cuban coast
guard and its armed forces.
The retired officers said they would
distribute their letter to all members of
Congress. H
From Houston to DC to Havana…
Experience.
Results.
Cuban Relations Legal Services Government Affairs
713.893.0500
www.chevalierlaw.com
26 CUBATRADE MAY 2017
x