Here's what I (as a relatively poorly informed AU citizen who's 'travelled a bit') don't understand about the reaction to this news.

It's clearly not the ideal end-game state. But, it seems to be a marked improvement on the previous (half-century-long) situation. And in order to get from current to ideal, there'll be some intermediary stuff. In tech this is a common and well understood progression - ideally it's short, well managed, not-too-painful, etc. But basically unavoidable.

So why is this announcement being judged in terms of 'This isn't perfect'?

I'm always confused about the duality of our pro-China but anti-Cuba attitude.

The idea of saturating Cuba with Americans to try something different to awaken the people to alternatives is a good idea, at least better than what we've done for the past half century.

And the scale of the evil the Castros have done is nothing compared to China. Cuba doesn't kidnap people from other countries and have them suddenly appear on Cuba TV confessing to crimes.

Trade, Not Trust;

Incidentally- “The United States will come talk to us when it has a black president and the world has a Latin American pope,”

-- Fidel Castro, 1973

Edit: flanbiscuit pointed out that there is no official record of this statement. Letting it stay, as a mythbuster.

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