| Chapter 2: | The Relations of Cuba with Latin America and the Caribbean: The Long and Winding Road of Reconciliation |
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normalize the relations between the two nations. Beginning at the end of the 1975, a series of prominent Democratic members of the U.S. Congress visited the island, including Senators Frank Church and George McGovern. These informal contacts represented a rapprochement process and negotiations on various topics. In this context, the Ford administration authorized U.S. companies to trade with Cuba through subsidiaries in third countries. In March 1977, the Carter administration lifted the regulations that had prevented U.S. citizens from travelling to the island. The following April, bilateral fishing agreements were signed and partial diplomatic relations were reestablished through the opening of interests sections in Washington and Havana, a diplomatic arrangement that remains in place today.
Although people’s expectations were raised to high levels by these events, ultimately the initiative failed when the U.S. government accused Cuba of taking advantage of the opening to expand its political and military influence in Angola and Ethiopia to the detriment of the interests of the United States. Subsequent stances taken by ex-president Jimmy Carter indicated that the rupture was not his primary goal. However, hard-line anti-Communist elements within Carter’s administration used the African issue to derail a rapprochement with Cuba that they did not support in the context of numerous challenges to U.S. power at that time, including in Nicaragua, Iran, and Afghanistan.12 In any case, Carter lost his bid for a second term, and the election of Ronald Regan ushered in an era when U.S. policymakers would work hard to reestablish a U.S. hegemony.
From Hemispheric Isolation
to a Gradual Reinsertion (1979–1988)
The 1970s and the 1980s were particularly important for Cuban international relations. Although Cuba was somewhat isolated in Latin America, it developed an active foreign policy in the rest of the countries of the Third World, gaining important allies and political support. The culmination of those efforts was celebrated in Havana in September 1979 with