The Council of the Americas (COA) [1] and the Americas Society (AS) [2] previously announced their support of the December 17th announcement of the U.S.-Cuba rapprochement and of the more recent presidential rescission of the U.S. designation of Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism.”
On April 21st COA and AS held their 45th annual Washington Conference at the U.S. Department of State. The theme this year was “Integration & Innovation: The Americas Agenda.” One of its speakers was U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Secretary Kerry quoted President Obama’s speech at the recent Summit of the Americas: the U.S. is engaged in “a new chapter of engagement in this region. I believed that our nations had to break free from the old arguments, the old grievances that had too often trapped us in the past, that we had a shared responsibility to look to the future and to think and act in fresh ways. [There is] . . . a new era of cooperation between our countries, as equal partners, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” This commitment was being met, Kerry said, –“and not solely because of our new policy towards Cuba.”
Therefore, stated Kerry, “what we need is . . . a common agenda for the shared progress, a blueprint for the next steps that will help to ensure the democratic and economic promise in the region is actually fulfilled. That is why the [U.S.] is engaged throughout the Americas on priorities that our partner governments and its citizens themselves have identified as important. These priorities fall into three broad categories. They include the building blocks of shared prosperity – education, innovation, trade, investment. They include energy and environmental security. And they include reconciliation and strengthening democratic and inter-American institutions across the board.”
Kerry specifically addressed Cuba. He said, “In December, President Obama made the courageous decision to update our Cuba policy, which was doing far more to isolate [U.S.] from our friends in the hemisphere than it was to isolate Havana. In Panama, the President and I met for hours with our Cuban counterparts, the first such formal meetings since the 1950s. And we’re committed to moving forward on the path to normalized relations. This new course is based not on a leap of faith, but on a conviction that the best way to promote U.S. interests and values while also helping to bring greater freedom and opportunity to the Cuban people is exactly what we are doing.”
Kerry also said the “same principle applies to Venezuela. In Panama, President Obama spoke briefly with President Maduro, and a week earlier, State Department Counselor Tom Shannon was in Caracas at the invitation of the government. It is no secret that relations between our two countries have been severely strained in recent years. But I began my tenure as Secretary with a long conversation with the then-foreign minister of Venezuela in an effort to promote a more productive relationship, and the [U.S.] remains open to further addressing our differences and attempting to find areas of common ground.”
Another speaker at the Conference was New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who said he is opposed to the new U.S. rapprochement with Cuba, describing the Castro government as a ”dictatorial family regime that denies freedoms to their people and is a sponsor of terrorism.” He spoke of the Cuban government’s asylum of Assata Shakur, who was convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. Stating that he is not opposed on principle to welcoming Cuba back into the “family of civilized nations, there is still a ways to go for that to happen.”
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[1] The COA says it is, “the premier international business organization whose members share a common commitment to economic and social development, open markets, the rule of law, and democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Council’s membership consists of leading international companies representing a broad spectrum of sectors, including banking and finance, consulting services, consumer products, energy and mining, manufacturing, media, technology, and transportation.”
[2] The COA is affiliated with the AS, which describes itself as “the premier forum dedicated to education, debate, and dialogue in the Americas. Its mission is to foster an understanding of the contemporary political, social, and economic issues confronting Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada, and to increase public awareness and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the Americas and the importance of the inter-American relationship.” The COA and AS have a Cuba Working Group, which includes “corporate leaders from the worlds of banking, financial services, energy, telecommunications, hospitality, pharmaceuticals, and law. Working group meetings look at the steps companies can take under current U.S. restrictions to pre-position themselves for future investment. This effort has produced a series of papers on regulations and laws affecting U.S. business activity under the U.S. embargo and in Cuba.”