Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the effect of the Cuban 'economic updating' process on the country's relationship with the United States. It will argue that the changes have the hidden intention of putting pressure on the US government to change its embargo policy.

Paper long abstract:

The Cuban government's strategy is ostensibly aimed at resolving domestic difficulties, in particular the parlous state of local food production, the lack of productivity and the low living standards of large swathes of the population. However, it is also possible to perceive a subtext within the current social and political changes being made that coincidentally and possibly deliberately affects the political situation in the United States vis a vis the Cuban-American community and various aspects of its embargo policy. This paper examines a number of the polices adopted by the Cuban government that impact on significant sectors and interests in the United States and explains how they increase the pressure on the Federal Government to alter its hostile policy towards the island. While US policy remains firm in its aim to see what it calls a 'democratic transition' in Cuba, the Cuban government is equally determined to maintian its one party system. The question is whether the Cuban government can indirectly influence US politcs enough to effect a drift towards a removal of the embargo without it meaning either a loss of the single-party system or soveriegnty. By assessing Cuban policy in terms of its foreign policy intent, this paper will conclude that this is not only be possible but may even be inevitable.