Talk on U.S.-Cuba Relations

I gave a talk today at Georgia College on U.S.-Cuba relations. Many thanks to Stephanie Opperman for inviting me. After the talk I had coffee with her and several of her students, who were really sharp and all were doing interesting work for their own papers. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

What I've been finding is that there is avid interest in Cuba, and I got some really good questions. A question that came up is how normalization will affect Cuba itself. My talk was really policy oriented but the point about Cuba deserves more attention. In the U.S. we tend to see it as either positive or possibly neutral, but an onslaught of American tourists and money will quickly change Cuba in ways that are both unpredictable and not necessarily positive.