Former Obama's Advisor Considers Anachronistic Blockade on Cuba

The U.S. blockade on Cuba is now anachronistic and meaningless, said political scientist Robert Malley, who served as special adviser to former U.S. President Barack Obama.

'The United States-Cuba dossier is currently anachronistic (...). Cuba is not a threat to the national security of the United States, so the sanctions, the blockade, all that, makes no sense anymore,' he said responding to a question from Prensa Latina, during a meeting with members of the Foreign Press Association in France.

The current president at the International Crisis Group said that from the executive sphere and without the Congress agreement, Obama tried to go as far as he could to ease the economic, commercial and financial siege.

'Obama did it in his own way, and he went as far as he thought he could go,' he said, adding that Obama acted in that way because he believed it, and because of Washington's commercial and political interests.

Malley recalled that the United States was isolated in the continent, not a single country supported it in its position towards Cuba, which 'damaged the strategic interests.'

As for the position adopted by current President Donald Trump, Malley said 'we have seen a regression, but not a regression to zero, that is, Trump did not return to the point we were before Obama.'

After saying that the blockade has not had the expected result and it should be reviewed, he stated that unfortunately keeping it is one of the issues Trump assumed as a campaign commitment, and perhaps he goes against his own instincts as a businessman.

Malley hopes that the president would not continue advancing in the regression promoted in the relations with Havana. 'There are those who are putting pressure on him to do more, but I hope he stops there, to at least preserve what has been reached, and then, let's wait for the post-Tump era to return to the issue and turn the page. This is truly an inglorious page, which did not succeed,' he said.

During the last few years of the Obama administration, Malley served as special advisor to the president and the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf region.