US Envoy Goes to Cuba to Help Support Emerging Private Sector
US State Department Press Release on Friday, Oct. 30.
HAVANA TIMES – “Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State David H. Thorne (in photo at top) will travel to Havana on November 1-3 to meet with government officials and business leaders, with the goal of supporting Cuba’s emerging private sector as part of the Department’s ‘Shared Prosperity Agenda.’
“José Raúl Perales, Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will accompany Ambassador Thorne.
“The delegation will meet with government officials and have discussions with entrepreneurs, visit the Mariel Port, and attend the inauguration of the U.S.-Cuba Business Council and the opening ceremony of the 33rd annual Havana International Fair (FIHAV), Havana’s largest annual multi-sector trade fair.”
Following is an excerpt from the State Department’s official biography of Senior Advisor Thorne:
“Ambassador [to Italy] David Thorne was named Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State in August 2013. Among other duties, Secretary [John] Kerry has asked Thorne to lead a Department-wide effort to position economic and commercial issues more prominently within the U.S. foreign policy landscape.
“Ambassador Thorne is also working to elevate the importance of entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation in the State Department’s promotion of global prosperity.”
Following is an excerpt from the Homeland Security department’s official biography of Puerto Rican-born José Raúl Perales:
“Perales advises the Secretary [Jeh Johnson] on the impact of the Department’s policies, regulations, and processes on private sector companies, universities, and not-for-profit institutions and enhances strategic communications in order to help the public and private sectors jointly meet their shared responsibility for homeland security.”
The EU doesn’t agree with you, otherwise they wouldn’t have brought an action under international law and wouldn’t have put in place counter-laws. But my point is wider. What precedent do you set if you willfully ignore UN resolutions and flout international laws as the US has done on many occasions.
I agree that the embargo is on its last legs and I’m all for trade and dialogue between the two countries. But this is because the US establishment has come to the conclusion that the dissidents aren’t up to the job and are now backing the Castros because they think they can get more that way. Certainly human rights won’t be an issue. Quote from a State Department official regarding plans to further relax the embargo “(we) … would not first demand human rights progress from Havana”. My concern is that the leverage will not be in the right direction.
Could the US envoy please describe exactly how his trip supports the emergence of the private sector in Cuba????
On his trip he is constantly accompanied by Cuban government officials, while he visits the port of Mariel, which is owned by the Cuban military, and attends the Havana Trade Fair, at which the sole Cuban customer is the corporate conglomerate owned by the Cuban military.
Could the US envoy please name one Cuban private sector business he visited?
This isn’t a question of international law. It’s s question of sovereignty. We choose who we do business with. That being said, the embargo is probably on its last legs. I don’t feel it serves a purpose any longer. Better to do business with Cuba and exert leverage that way
International law and UN votes should count for something. If I was American I would be thoroughly ashamed at the way the country treats the rest of the world. What goes around comes around. One day they will have to pay dearly for this attitude.
World opinion about the embargo? Big yawn! Will anyone stop visiting or emigrating to the US. Any business lost because of it? No? That’s right! Feel how you may about the embargo, and I feel it no longer serves a purpose, the world pays little heed. After the UN Cuba vote the US ambassador to the UN took the big players out to lunch and got down to real business.
….by the way, congratulations! . You finally posted a comment that didn’t include a reference to Batista.
Trade with Cuba, in any form, is better than none. Just hitting the wires is Sprint signing a deal
to provide roaming for US citizens traveling to Cuba. Now that’s a big deal! Best of luck!
The State Department’s “Shared Prosperity Agenda” sure seems more decent than the myriad of “Regime Change” programs that the Miami Cubans continue to fund with tons of tax dollars courtesy of the U. S. Congress, as documented repeatedly by investigative journalist/professor Tracey Eaton on his Along the Malecon blog. Any decency from the U. S. expressed by the U. S. government to Cubans on the island would help ameliorate the UN’s outrage regarding America’s Cuban policy (191-to-2 with the whole world opposing the U.S.-Israeli position). Of course, benefactors within the bowels of the vast Castro Industry in the U. S. refrain from commenting on the world’s opinion — 191-to-2.
Nothing furthers local development more than trade. Buy local product to promote growth of a local sustainable economy. But is Cuba ready to let it’s small business sector cut loose ?