The analyst Rubén Cortés argued in an interview with Tania Costa for CiberCuba that economic changes must precede political changes in Cuba, taking a stance against the position of the Cuban-American lobby in Washington, which demands a regime change first as a condition for any opening.
"That speech was going well until the Cuban lobby in Washington and many anti-Castro Cuban actors started to pressure and say that political changes must come first, followed by economic changes," Cortés stated.
The analyst clarified his personal position from the outset: "I am anti-Castro. My books are available. They can be consulted. They are signed. One is what one signs."
Cortés also established a conceptual distinction between dictatorship and tyranny, which he considers key to understanding the nature of the Cuban regime.
"Tyranny is not the same as dictatorship. Dictatorship is when there is a democratic façade, as was the case in Venezuela, and as it is in Venezuela. Tyranny is when there is no façade and when the regime is a rogue regime, like the Cuban regime, which imprisons, which prevents Cubans from being free, from thinking, from doing business," he pointed out.
Even acknowledging that reality, Cortés argued that the strategy must be pragmatic: "If life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade."
To support his stance, the analyst referred to a Marxist argument that he himself acknowledged as such: "Marxism says that being determines consciousness and that one thinks as they live. I think like a person who lives between Miami and Mexico City. You think like a person who lives in Madrid and a guajiro from Pinar del Río thinks like a guajiro from Pinar del Río."
That material reality, she argued, is what must first be transformed for political change to be possible and sustainable.
"I believe that economic changes should come first. Economic changes generally lead to political changes, money tends to impose itself," he said.
As a concrete example, Cortés suggested imagining the arrival of foreign companies on the island: “If there is a company, Coca-Cola comes to Cuba and can do business, pays the Cubans and the Cubans can buy a Coca-Cola and can buy a piece of bread, a bread with steak on the corner, from whoever sells it, from another private company, I think it's a great step toward solving the problem of 67 years.”
In contrast, he described the idea of a sudden regime change as unfeasible, in a context where Trump has suggested that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier could pass by Cuba after completing military operations.
"This desire for the aircraft carrier to arrive tomorrow, to take someone away in their underwear, and for a new president, who I don't know who it's going to be, to suddenly show up... I think that mix-up, to put it mildly, is very difficult," he stated.
Cortés cited the Spanish democratic transition as a reference model, summarizing it in a phrase: "For everything to change, something must remain."
The analyst also compared the situation to Venezuela, warning that Díaz-Canel has already ruled out negotiating political changes and that Venezuelans in the midst of the transition are "anxious" and do not convey a sense of calm, which makes that process a lesson on the risks of radical change.
The interview takes place days after Trump signed an executive order for expanded sanctions against the Cuban regime on May 1, which blocks the assets of officials in the United States and introduces, for the first time, secondary sanctions against foreign companies and banks operating in strategic sectors of the island.
The Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez responded to the pressures from Washington with a brief statement: "We will not be intimidated".
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