The Obama administration placed a number of initia

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The Obama administration placed a number of initiatives on the table that Cuban bureaucrats responded to with characteristic caution. The Cubans were excruciatingly slow to issue licenses to U.S. firms interested in doing business in Cuba, failed to open fluid channels for commerce with the Cuban private sector, and did not settle the outstanding property claims of U.S. citizens. Had the Cuban government engaged more energetically with these constituencies, they might have provided a counterweight to the Miami hardliners in Donald Trump’s political calculations. This Cuban caution illustrates one of the core themes of The World As It Is: Other nations pursue their own interests as they see them, resistant to the entreaties of even the most powerful nation on earth.

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