Under the Influence: Tangled Up in Cuba

Under the Influence: Tangled Up in Cuba

As if absurdity weren't already the norm in U.S.-Cuba relations, three years ago the U.S. Interest Section, housed in a rectangular seven-story building in the Vedado district of Havana, began broadcasting a news ticker across its sixth-floor windows. The five-foot, red-orange lettering crept from one end of the building to the other, like anachronistic soldiers leftover from an ideological war settled long ago.

Unfortunately, however, nobody seems to have told either the Americans or the Cubans. In kind, Fidel Castro ordered a million people to march on the building in protest. The Cuban government proceeded to block the ticker's view with billboards in a -- let's be frank here -- childish, tit-for-tat battle. The story only underscored what has become a ludicrous diplomatic debacle between the two countries separated by barely 90 miles.

In July, the Obama administration thankfully turned off the ticker. But during his campaign for the White House, President Barack Obama pledged to ease travel restrictions to Cuba, and upon his election many were hoping that he would go even further. Over the course of four decades, by laws, decrees, and other methods that rely on legislation dating back to the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917, the U.S. has erected an intricate tangle of restrictions that have constituted a wholesale embargo on the island. The hope, of course, was that Obama would lift the embargo, and in turn, open a new chapter of U.S. foreign relations with not only Cuba, but all of Latin America.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review