Regional Integration and the Cuba Thaw

John de Bhal, "Never Thaw that coming! Latin American regional integration and the US–Cuba Thaw," Third World Quarterly 40, 5 (2019): 855-869.

Abstract (gated):

Existing accounts of the US–Cuba Thaw correctly identify the decisiveness of Latin American states in pushing the 2014 change in US policy towards Cuba. Problematically, however, these accounts overlook a range of regional integration projects pursued by Latin American states that prove pivotal in ascertaining the central dynamics of the region in shaping the Thaw. This article argues that these regional integration projects are imperative to understanding how Latin American states were able to alter US policy towards Cuba, for three reasons. First, these initiatives, and Cuba’s role in these projects, are central to understanding why Cuba came to be a unanimously ‘regional’ issue for Latin American states of all political persuasions; second, the challenges to US dominance in the region provided by these integration projects were ultimately what gave Latin American states their teeth in pushing the Obama administration to reconsider its policy towards Cuba; and third, a consideration of this broader regional context more thoroughly illustrates the strategic nature of the change in policy towards Cuba as an attempt by the US to salvage its ability to influence regional affairs in response to these integration initiatives that excluded it from the region’s architecture.

The idea here is that regional integration (even if partial and imperfect) forced the Cuba issue. Most of Latin America had rejected the U.S. stance toward Cuba for years, but the integration efforts made it clearer that regularized Cuba relations were a precondition to greater U.S. influence.

It would be interesting to use this argument as a stepping stone to understand the transitory nature of the thaw. To have an impact, the U.S. government has to define influence in terms of cooperation. The Obama administration was sandwiched between two governments that viewed influence more in terms of power projection, with Trump obviously at the extreme in that regard.