Mark Falcoff is Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC who researches Latin America and is the author of the Institute’s “Latin American Outlook.”  Mark talked to the World Affairs Council about the issues addressed in his recent book, Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago, many Americans have debated whether or not the U.S. should finally lift the trade embargo on Cuba and engage in full diplomatic relations with the Castro regime.  Mark argues that the controversy is a waste of time. He believes Cuba is finished as a country – a situation which lifting the embargo can not and will not change.

Mark explained that in 1958 Cuba was at the top of the Latin American range in most indices of development – urbanization, services, health and literacy. Much of the prosperity was based on a favorable place reserved for its sugar harvest in the U.S. domestic market. However, since then, the Cuban quota has been divided up among other countries, and sugar is no longer a particularly valuable commodity. Meanwhile, Cuba’s antiquated sugar industry is near collapse. Last year Castro was forced to shut down almost half of the country’s sugar mills.

Today, Cuba survives on tourism and remittances. But, as Mark explained, neither can replace the old U.S. sugar quota or even the $6 billion annual subsidy the island received for three decades from the Soviet Union.  Many assume that when Fidel Castro has passed from the scene, the island will be transformed into a capitalist paradise, thanks to the return of a successful and prosperous exile community. However, the young Cuban Americans who visit Cuba now do NOT see what their elders saw in Cuba and no longer have a desire to return. In fact, 20,000 people emigrate from Cuba to the U.S. each year.

Mark argues that the island has changed too much over the past four decades of communist rule.  Cuba’s revolutionary past cannot be unlived. Neither can communism sustain the expectations and needs of eleven million people. The Cuban citizens want the promises of the revolution and the dynamics of a free economy. This is the permanent tension around which Cuba the Morning After is built. Cuba will have a serious identity crisis when it no longer has conflict with the U.S. since it has enormous prestige from third world countries because it stands up to the United States.

In the United States, the Cuban American population has a disproportionate influence on U.S. policy towards Cuba, just as all ethnic groups in the U.S. have a disproportionate share of influence on policies that affect their native countries. Cuban Americans have argued for continuation of the embargo and isolation of Castro.  Additionally, Castro has sabotaged attempts at normalization.

Mark ends with a discouraging message -- that a Cuba unable to earn a legitimate wage on the world market will be a prime candidate to export its internal crisis to the United States, starting  with possibly uncontrolled outflows of migrants, and widening to encompass drugs and international criminality.  Mark calls on both critics and advocates of current U.S. policy to consider these prospects before it is too late.