Küba’daki muhtemel değişim için Miami elitinin Havana sonrası planları gündemde

Kısaca

Miami’nin önde gelen özel sermaye çevreleri Kuba’da yönetimin değişebileceğini öne sürerek Havana sonrası için planlar oluşturuyor CANCC’nin kurulduğu ve Havana sonrası için borsa, enerji altyapısı ve gıda güvenliği gibi konularda komite kurulduğu belirtiliyor Gözlemciler yatırımcılar için politik risk ve ortaklık fırsatlarını izlemeye devam edilmesini öneriyor

Ana mesele

Küba’da olası değişim beklentisiyle Miami kökenli zengin Cuban-American topluluğu Havana sonrası için planlar yapıyor

Ne değişti?

İş dünyasının Havana sonrası için somut ticaret ve piyasa projeleri geliştirdiği gözlemleniyor

Beni nasıl etkiler?

Okuyucular küresel yatırım akışları ve iktidar sonrası ticaret dinamikleri konusunda dikkatli olmalı

Ne oldu?

Küba-Amerikan iş dünyası, Havana’nın düşüşü sonrası için ticaret ve yatırım planları masaya yatırdı

Neden şimdi?

ABD politikaları ve son gelişmeler bu planları hızlandırmış görünüyor

Neden önemli?

Küba’ya yönelik yatırım akışları ve bölgesel ticaret dengeleri etkilenebilir

Kimler etkileniyor?

• Küba’daki potansiyel değişimden etkilenecek yabancı yatırımcılar
• Küba-Amerikan iş ağları
• ABD ile Küba arasındaki ticaret ve politik aktörler

Sektör ve piyasa etkisi

Küresel yatırım ve Miami tabanlı Cuban-American topluluğunun etkisiyle bazı sektörlerde ilgi artabilir

Riskler

• Siyasi belirsizlik
• ABD politikalarının değişmesi
• Yatırım geri dönüş süreleri uzayabilir

Takip edilmesi gerekenler

• ABD- Küba politikalarının değişimleri
• Havana sonrası planların uygulanabilirliği
• Güncel ticaret ve enerji altyapı projelerinin finansmanı

Haberin tamamı

Image caption, Juan Omar Sixto says he and his colleagues are ready to 'go and do business in Cuba right away'

At the lavish home of one of Miami's top plastic surgeons, overlooking the Biscayne Bay, some of the wealthiest Cuban-American families in Florida have gathered.

They are there to thrash out their vision of Cuba's future at the fourth meeting of the newly created Cuban-American National Chamber of Commerce (CANCC).

Rum in hand and Rolexes on wrists, this is Miami's old money. People with well-recognised Cuban-American surnames – like Bacardi and Babun – chat around the pool about the lamentable state of the island's economy, and share titbits of gossip about the latest political rumblings.

"The intention of this evening is to gather under one roof the most prominent Cuban-American entrepreneurs in Miami-Dade County," says CANCC president Juan Omar Sixto, "and the objective is to be in Cuba once the regime falls".

Published 19 September US sanctions more Cuban companies and officials

Published 21 August How the US oil blockade is pushing Cuba into darkness

Published 26 June This influential community of Cuban exiles has detested the Communist-run government ever since the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro expropriated their lands and nationalised their families' companies after taking power in 1959.

And they have wielded their political and economic clout in Florida over the years to shape Washington's policies towards their homeland.

Sixto fled the island as a teenager. Now a real estate developer in his early 80s, his organisation is drafting plans for what he calls "the day after" in Cuba.

The CANCC has created a proposal for a Cuban Stock Exchange and formed committees on everything from energy infrastructure to food security.

Countless documents and logistical plans have been drawn up by interest groups over the decades, some of them more sober and measured than others.

The difference now, insists Sixto, is the Trump administration's push to force total change on the island. And he says they have the ear of some high-profile contacts including people close to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

"Together with deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical supplies, we'd go and do business in Cuba right away," says Sixto.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images Image caption, The economic situation in Cuba has worsened since a US blockade on the island importing oil

In the face of Washington's "maximum pressure" campaign on Cuba, the island's leadership recently announced 176 economic liberalisation measures. The Cuban President, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said they were "to advance the defence of socialism, to support and widen social justice".

To his critics, they look distinctly like full-blown capitalism - lifting the cap on the number of workers in a private business, allowing the direct hiring and firing of Cuban employees and permitting ownership of multiple enterprises at once, including by Cuban Americans.

Still, the attendees at the CANCC meeting dismissed the economic reforms as cosmetic, saying they gave no meaningful guarantees to investors. They would "not put a foot into Cuba", Sixto said, while the current regime remained in place.

Some analysts think such planning meetings are premature. Although Cuban Americans are convinced that change is imminent in Cuba, none can say with any certainty what it will be - a US military operation as seen in Venezuela in January? Or a new economic pact with the island's leadership?

"Right now, the very high expectations created by the US administration that some kind of 'day after' was coming soon, or that Cuba would 'be next' have been kicked down the road," says Mike Bustamante, associate professor of history at the University of Miami.

With the November mid-term elections in the US approaching and the Trump administration embroiled in the "quagmire" of the Iran war, Bustamante argues there is little appetite for further foreign adventures.

"It's really tough to think that they will escalate further than what they're doing which is this drip-drip-drip of sanctions."

With the island's oil supply effectively shut off since January, that is already a significant escalation, says Mike Bustamente. Although they have made life unbearable for most ordinary people, they haven't yet "created the ingredients for a political inflection point" in Cuba, he adds.

Image caption, Juan Omar Sixto, centre, and his colleague have big plans drawn up for Cuba

The Cuban government has not commented on the CANCC itself. But traditionally such groups prompt indignation among revolutionaries who insist they will not be forced out by their critics in Miami.

I ask some guests if they can appreciate the irony that the same people who support a major source of the island's misery – the decades-long US economic embargo and the current fuel blockade – are now hatching plans for its reconstruction, without the input of most Cubans.

For Cuban-American agricultural expert Hugo Orizondo it is only practical to draw up a road map to Cuban development. "Right now, Cuba is like a black hole, we don't know what is happening over there," he admits. "But we do know the potential [for investment]."

Orizondo says he understands the reticence among Cubans to see foreign investors buying up something as sensitive as the rights to arable land. "But what are they going to do with it?" he retorts. "When investors come, they bring money and technology into the land."

Both are urgently needed, he says, if Cuba is ever to produce enough to feed its own population and break its reliance on food imports.

Land titles lie at the heart of any reconstruction project put forward by this generation of wealthy Cuban Americans. Juan Omar Sixto says his father lost five properties and a farm in Cuba's Pinar del Rio province to the revolution. While he insists he has no intention of removing any family living in those homes, he does want compensation for the nationalised land.

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Kaynaklar

• BBC - Business