Cuban Cigars for EVERYONE!

Cuban Cigars for EVERYONE! 

The Gist

In a HUGE departure from stated American foreign policy goals, the Obama administration said it will start the process of normalizing relations with our communist neighbor, Cuba. Cuba is currently one of five countries that the Unites States does not have relations with (the others are: Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and Taiwan). The United States severed relations in January 1961. The back channeling that got us here was helped by the media-loved Pope Francis, pot-loving President Jose Mucia of Uruguay and the ever likable Canadians. The announcement is seen as an admittance by the United States that isolating a country diplomatically and economically simply does not work (fifty years later and a Castro still rules Cuba). The Cuban expatriate community reaction, which is primarily Republican, will probably be mixed. On the one hand, they will be able to send much needed American dollars back home with less problems. On the other hand they might see this move as an acceptance that Cuba will not return to the days when Havana was a capitalist haven (and a haven for organized crime: Lucky Luciano held his famous Havana Conference at the mafia run Hotel Nacional). Reaction on Capitol was, unsurprisingly, divided among party lines (Cuban-American Senators Cruz, Menendez and Rubio were quick to comment). More important than the enormous geopolitical implications of this announcement, is the fact that lawyers, frat guys and businessmen all over America may be able to smoke Cuban cigars once more (CNN broke down the Cuban embargo for us)…and now you know the gist.