Sen. Marco Rubio’s forceful criticism of President Obama’s decision to begin normalizing relations with Cuba has sparked speculation about his campaign strategy. While most have argued that Rubio benefits greatly from becoming Obama’s primary foe on any issue, others have suggested that this casts him as a “young fogey” still fighting the last (cold) war.
For example, Bloomberg’s Francis Wilkinson wrote that
“A son of Cuban emigres, Rubio’s anti-communist fervor no doubt comforts the aged, displaced Cubans of Miami, whose ‘trauma of exile — disbelief, guilt, a sense of loss — had shaped their lives and my own,’ he wrote in his autobiography.
“But it must puzzle his peers. Senator Rand Paul, who is almost a decade older than Rubio, is striving to be the Republican ambassador to youth. He called normalizing relations with Cuba ‘probably a good idea.’ Rubio, who seems to cherish the role of favored grandson,called it ‘disgraceful.'”
On the surface, this makes sense — and to the extent that perception is reality, Rubio does run the risk of appearing out of date.
But the truth is that Rubio’s position on this issue is much more nuanced than reflexively opposing the relaxing of an embargo. First, he understandably thinks Obama should have extracted much more from Cuba (especially in terms of human rights), and that the president essentially gave away the store to the Castros — without getting as much in return as he might have.
Second, Rubio convincingly pokes holes in the notion that more trade, increased prosperity, and a dose of capitalism will inexorably lead to real political freedom.
For example, on Sunday, he said:
“Certainly the Chinese economy has grown, but politically they’re more repressed than they were twenty or thirty years ago. There’s no freedom of religion, no freedom of speech, no free access to the Internet, no elections, no political parties,” Rubio said. “So in essence, that is the model the Cubans will try to follow.”
It’s easy to cast Rubio as behind the times on this, but it seems to me that the people who quixotically believe trade with Cuba is a panacea — or that it will automatically lead to more political freedom for the people of Cuba — are the ones who haven’t gotten the memo.
