Is it because they have an auto fetish in the Caribbean?
No, it's because Cubans have been driving and repairing the same American cars since we stopped exporting to the island when JFK was in office.
But in these post-Cold War times, the vehicle of Cuban progress may well be the getaway car for some American firms.
The US-Cuba Energy Summit convened Thursday in Mexico City, a neutral site that skirts travel restrictions on US and Cuban participants. The purpose of the gathering is simple: to advance US firms' knowledge of the energy potential simmering just 60 miles off the coast of Florida.
Chinese, Canadian, Norwegian, and Indian companies have all signed exploration deals with the Cuban government in the past two years, since the discovery of oil deposits in Cuban waters set off a frenzy of speculative activity.
Organizers and participants in the energy summit are interested in ending the sanctions against bilateral trade so that Cuba's neighbor to the north can gain access to some of the hydrocarbon potential of Cuba.
This is no leftist party, either. Valero Corp., the biggest US oil refiner, took part in the summit, as did the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the Texas port of Corpus Christi. Each of these parties knows that the potential boon to the gulf oil economy provided by a Cuban oil rush would be enormous.
And there is another Gulf-Cuba tie worth noting: the World Baseball Classic, set to begin in the US this March, finally allowed the Cuban national team to participate after Castro pledged to donate any Cuban profits to victims of Hurricane Katrina. This is quite a deal for the US, isn't it? We keep our embargo and Cuba helps us clean up our own mess.
Cuba has 750 million barrels of proven oil reserves. That is more than we can ignore so close to Key West. Perhaps the Cuban government can promise to supply cheap gasoline to Katrina refugees as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez did, in order to get the US government to let its fist down long enough to recognize this energy opportunity.
After all, agricultural trade restrictions have been loosened since 2000, allowing the flow of dairy and other products from the United States to Cuba.
If need is demonstrated, foreign policy is malleable. That has always been the case, and the dire straits of today's energy markets require a re-examination of threat and benefit on a country-by-country basis.
- Sam Hopkins
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