The Cuban political scientist Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Arechavaleta, a researcher at the Ibero-American University of Mexico City and a specialist in transition, warns that the conversations between Cuba and the United States are not negotiations between equals and that the most likely scenario is not democracy, but controlled adjustments without any real political change, urging to lower expectations.
This scenario of controlled partial reforms, similar to the Vietnamese model, demands, in his view, economic flexibility within a one-party framework, with more efficient selective repression, but without addressing the political core.
"Without fractures, it is impossible for us to have a transition; as long as there is cohesion in the elite, the regime will efficiently control its internal reform, which will never be a political reform," he stated.
That is why he calls for lowering expectations: "I would reduce short-term expectations," he said clearly, dismissing the idea that current conditions will lead to real democratization in the immediate future.
In an interview with CiberCuba, the Doctor of Political Science was straightforward: "The term negotiation is too grand for these conversations" which are bilateral discussions between two countries, two states, characterized by a relationship of hostility that translates into distrust.
In his opinion, the asymmetry is structural and decisive: Cuba negotiates from a position of extreme economic survival, without electricity, without medicine, and without food, facing a superpower with multiple geopolitical interests. "It is a country truly in survival conditions against a power that has multiple geopolitical interests," emphasized the analyst.
Each actor comes to the table with radically different objectives, the expert adds. On the U.S. side, Rodríguez Arechavaleta identifies Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the real strategist of the process, pressured by the Cuban exile community—which he describes as a "veto actor"—and influenced by an election year. On the regime's side, the red lines are non-negotiable: the political system is not negotiable, the Constitution is not negotiable, and the leadership structure is not negotiable.
That absence of substantial common ground is what causes the conversations to go nowhere. The only topics both parties share are issues such as drug trafficking and human trafficking, while fundamental matters—human rights, civil liberties, political plurality—are excluded from the discussion by the regime's decision, the expert adds.
The Cuban exile community, divided between a pragmatic sector, willing to accept gradual economic reforms and a maximalist sector that demands prior political change, has already halted an initial phase of negotiations when it rejected what it called a "fraudulent change": economic liberalization without political transformation.
Trump's statements escalated the climate. According to the analyst, by saying he was about to "take Cuba," it triggered an immediate defensive retreat from the regime, which activated its entrenched narrative and led Raúl Castro to address the army.
Regarding the Cuban people, the analyst was more cautious but firm: "I want to believe that there are limits. I am closely aware of the conditions in which people are living in the municipalities," he stated, referencing the extreme situation faced by the population. For Rodríguez Arechavaleta, if the economic easing measures do not result in a real improvement in living conditions, the regime will not be able to sustain that state of affairs indefinitely.
As a solution, the expert proposes that the Department of State present a reform package that goes beyond economic liberalization and includes specific political components, such as a constitutional reform or a new constitutional assembly within a timeframe of six months to one year, with the participation of various stakeholders representing the entirety of contemporary Cuban society.
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