It is a truth universally acknowledged, or at least it ought to be, that a great power in possession of a newly assertive foreign policy must be in want of a scapegoat. The latest object of Washington’s renewed ire is Cuba, that stubborn little island that has spent six decades confounding the Yankees. Donald Trump, never one for subtlety, has tightened the screws once more, reviving sanctions and threatening further actions. The question is not why—the man’s animus for anything to do with Obama is well documented—but to what end? The UK Foreign Office, ever the anxious appendage to American power, now wrings its hands over the strategic implications. Let us perform the autopsy.
First, the domestic calculus. Trump is a man who feeds on nostalgia for a lost American Eden, a time when the world trembled at the sound of a Marine band. Cuba represents a totemic enemy, a relic of the Cold War that still elicits primal anger in the Florida electorate. By rattling the cage of the Castros (or their successors), he signals to the right that he has not gone soft. It is the politics of the symbolic gesture, the equivalent of painting your warship grey and pointing it at a defenceless fishing boat. But is there a grander strategy? The theory of coercive diplomacy suggests that pressure on Cuba is meant to wring concessions on migration, or to force a break with Venezuela. Yet history teaches us that embargoes rarely break the will of a people already accustomed to scarcity. The siege mentality only hardens.
Second, the international dimension. The UK must tread carefully. We are the loyal terrier to the American lion, but our own interests in the Caribbean are not negligible. British firms have been cautiously eyeing Cuban markets, and our diplomats have enjoyed modest successes in cultural and educational exchanges. A full-throated endorsement of Trump’s line would alienate us from the European consensus and from Latin American sentiment, which has largely moved past the old enmities. The Foreign Office’s analysis, I suspect, will hedge. It will speak of “concerns” and “monitoring” while quietly hoping the storm passes. But this is the problem with being a junior partner: you must dance to the tune called by Washington, even when it is a march into irrelevance.
Third, the historical parallel. I am drawn to the late Roman habit of demonising a foreign power to distract from internal decay. Is Cuba the new Parthia? Perhaps. But Trump is not Augustus; he is more akin to a latter-day Pompey, seeking military laurels in a world that no longer rewards them. The real strategic threat to the United States is not the decrepit Cuban regime but the rise of China, the erosion of its manufacturing base, and the rot in its own civic fabric. Focus on Cuba is a form of intellectual decadence, a preference for the simplicity of old battles over the complexity of new ones.
To what end, then? If the goal is to secure a symbolic victory, Trump may succeed in extracting minor concessions. But if the goal is a fundamental shift in Cuba’s alignment, he will fail. The island has survived nine American presidents and will survive a tenth. For the UK, the lesson is to maintain a degree of independent thought. We should not mimic the frenzy. Instead, we should remind our cousins across the Atlantic that sanctions are a siege weapon, and sieges are what one does to a city, not a nation. Let us hope the Foreign Office has the nerve to say so.
