Getting to a Pragmatic Cuba Policy for the United States
The United States has pursued a tough sanctions policy against Cuba for decades, interrupted only by a brief thaw during the second Obama administration. The sanctions policy is highly unpopular in Latin America, and indeed the world — it has been voted down in multiple UN resolutions. However, the communist government in Havana remains in power, there is no end in sight to the suffering of the Cuban people, and waves of refugees from the island nation have roiled U.S. domestic politics. The second Trump administration recently released its own Cuba policy; meanwhile, China and Russia are fishing in troubled waters, looking to deepen their ties with Cuba.
Can we get to a more pragmatic Cuba policy that accounts for the vital interests of the United States, which include regional stability in Latin America and the Caribbean? How can we address the severe humanitarian crisis that has been triggered by the U.S. sanctions policy? What are the realistic steps to achieve a balance in the current environment in Washington?
A new Quincy Institute brief by authors William M. LeoGrande, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and Geoff Thale, former president of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), address the question of U.S. policy toward Cuba. This webinar will discuss the brief and broader questions, including Washington’s global approach to sanctions. It will include the authors and Joy Gordon, the Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J. Chair in Social Ethics in the Philosophy Department at Loyola University-Chicago. Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute, will moderate the conversation.
The discussion will take place on Tuesday, July 22nd from 2:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern Time.
Program
Entities
Panelists
William M. LeoGrande
Dr. William M. LeoGrande is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and associate vice-provost for Academic Affairs, professor of Government, and Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Dr. LeoGrande previously served on the staff of the Democratic Policy Committee of the United States Senate and the Democratic Caucus Task Force on Central America of the United States House of Representatives, He has been an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and a Pew Faculty Fellow in International Affairs. He is the co-author of "Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana", which received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2015 Dillon Book Award for the best book on the practice of American diplomacy.
Geoff Thale
Geoff Thale is the former president of the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, a leading research and advocacy organization advancing human rights in the Americas. Thale has followed Central American issues since the mid-1980s, and founded WOLA’s Cuba program in 1995. He travels regularly to the island, and has been involved in delegations and exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba. Before coming to WOLA, Mr. Thale was the founder and Executive Director of the El Salvador Policy Project in Washington, D.C., which followed the negotiations to end El Salvador’s civil war and the construction of post-war institutions.
Joy Gordon
Dr. Joy Gordon is the Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J. Chair in Social Ethics in the Philosophy Department at Loyola University-Chicago. She conducts research and publishes extensively in the field of economic sanctions, particularly issues of their legality and their humanitarian consequences. Her first book, "Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions", was published by Harvard University Press in 2010. Currently she has an edited volume forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, "Economic Sanctions from Havana to Baghdad: Legitimacy, Accountability, and Humanitarian Consequences." She has also published articles in Le Monde Diplomatique, Yale Journal of International Law, Foreign Policy, Ethics and International Affairs, and elsewhere.
Sarang Shidore
Sarang Shidore is director of the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute. He was also a member of the adjunct faculty at George Washington University, where he taught a class on the geopolitics of climate change. He researches and writes on the geopolitics of the Global South, Asia, and climate change. Sarang has published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Nation, South China Morning Post, The Diplomat, Council on Foreign Relations, Energy Policy, Energy Research & Social Science and others. He currently also serves as co-lead in the think-tank track (T20) of the G20 meetings. Prior to his current role, Sarang was director of studies at the Quincy Institute, senior research scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, and senior global analyst at the geopolitical risk firm Stratfor Inc. and previously also spent more than a decade in engineering and product management in the technology industry.