For the past 30 years, Joseph Gonzalez has traveled regularly to Havana to gauge sentiment among Cubans as part of his research into U.S.-Cuban relations.
During his first such visit, in 1996, he found Cubans in the midst of what was euphemistically referred to as the “Special Period” – a yearslong economic crisis brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end of assistance from Havana’s former communist ally. In his most recent visit in June, Gonzalez encountered similar circumstances: fuel shortages and blackouts.
But whereas the people Gonzalez spoke with during that earlier period believed that all Cubans – including the party leadership – were in it together, now there is widespread resentment over how elites are escaping the conditions that everyday residents are experiencing. “It’s time for them to suffer like we suffer,” one resident told Gonzalez.
The U.S.-based scholar came back with a sense that Cubans desperately want the oil embargo put in place by the Trump administration to end, and no one wanted a U.S. invasion. But at the same time, they want the pressure Washington has placed on the Cuban government to continue, and force real change.
Elsewhere this week, we have been assessing Trump’s performance at the NATO summit and asking: Has the shine come off the World Cup?
