Cuban-American Relations Better Served by Engagement Than by Estrangement

Kerry lead a ceremony to raise the US flag over the newly reopened American embassy on Friday, becoming the first US top diplomat to visit Cuba in 70 years.

Secretary of State John Kerry was on hand In Havana Friday, praising the leaders of both Cuba and America for making the decision to “stop being prisoners of history”.

The ceremonial opening of the embassy is a major milestone in the diplomatic detente between Cuba and the U.S. that was announced last December by President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro.

Speaking later with reporters, Kerry said the U.S. Congress was unlikely to lift a punishing economic embargo on Cuba unless human rights improved. Several senior administration officials, discussing the sensitive issue on condition of anonymity, said they were taken aback by the criticism.

Kerry said the isolation and estrangement road is not the right path for both the countries and the time calls for new journey in a promising direction.

The events underscored the potential as well as the limits of rekindled U.S.-Cuba relations.

But he also argued that “Cuba’s future is for Cubans to shape”, adding that the responsibility “rests, as it should, not with any outside entity, but exclusively with the citizens of this country“.

Also on the day of the ceremony, Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio gave remarks that continued his opposition to the renewal of normal relations.

But the more the two governments work together, he said, the more the public perception would change.

According to Market Watch, U.S travelers can bring back $100 worth of cigars from Cuba, but U.S. retailers cannot carry the tobacco product. “We can’t waste our time on that”, Soler told Agence France-Presse.

However, he reiterated Havana’s demand to re-establish relations with the United States, which have been ruptured more than 50 years ago.

The two countries formally restored diplomatic ties on July 20, when Rodriguez attended the opening of the Cuban embassy in Washington.

“All the people in Cuba fighting for democracy – when they protest, they are rounded up, arrested and beaten”.

Kerry said in a series of interviews with Spanish-language press Wednesday that the day would move the U.S.-Cuban relationship into a series of detailed talks about topics including “law enforcement, maritime security, education, health, telecommunications”.

Kerry was to meet with dissidents and representatives of Cuban civil society, who were not invited to the ceremony at the embassy.

Rodriguez says Cuba expects compensations for damages caused by the long US economic embargo, as it considers US claims for property expropriated by the Cuban government.