Interview: Obama's opening up to Cuba to recast U.S. ties with LatAm, says Chilean observer

U.S. President Barack Obama's "bold" new plan to visit Cuba later this month will recast his country's previously distant ties with Latin America, Chilean political observer Luis Maira said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

The move "rearranges the United States' general relationship with Latin America, and marks an unexpected turn that is far removed from the positions it maintained since 1960 towards the Cuban Revolution," said Maira, executive director of the Santiago-based Latin American and Caribbean Council on International Relations (RIAL) and Chile's envoy to the Colombian peace process.

However, he acknowledged that the motives behind Obama's decision to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba had less to do with conciliation than with personal achievement and economic pragmatism.

The Republicans won an overwhelming majority in the U.S. Congress through mid-term elections in 2014, leaving Obama with little legislative support for any of his projects, according to Maira.

But as head of the executive branch, Obama could spearhead rapprochement with Cuba and secure his presidential legacy.

"You have to admit that Obama made a bold move ... on Dec. 17 (2014), when he declared the restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba," Maira said.

Still, convincing Cuba was not a problem, Maira said, since "for more than five decades, Cuba has been willing to normalize ties with the United States." "But that should be based on the respect for independence and the right to have a political system," he said.

Obama was not alone in attempts to court Cuba. While the conservative camps in the U.S. were vocal in condemning the move, the U.S. business sector was largely in favor of it, Maira noted.

"In the end, (the sector) defended its interests, leading to the normalization of ties with Havana, not in ideological terms nor without conditions on Cuba's political system," he said.

Grain companies in several states across the U.S. Midwest, especially in Iowa, "see Cuba as an important destination for their businesses," Maira added.

"That led to bipartisan consensus in various states, as evidenced by a variety of congressional delegations to Cuba meeting with the island's officials. It also isolated the Cuban community in Miami, which for many years set policies toward the island," Maira said.

Over the years, Miami's Cuban community -- long hostile to the Cuban government -- has also changed considerably, presenting Obama with less resistance than they would have done before, according to Maira.

"Second-generation Cubans, raised in the United States, have no ideological outlook and want to maintain their Cuban roots," he said. "So they don't view the island's socialist government as a threat, and welcome the idea of increased contact."

In contrast with early Cuban immigrants, mostly from the moneyed class and leaving the island after the revolution in 1959, the new generations of Cuban-Americans "travel frequently to the island" and already engage with the Cuban society, Maira said.

The White House has recently announced Obama's planned visit to Cuba on March 21-22, making him the first U.S. sitting president in 88 years to do so.

The trip, Maira said, reflects "Obama's own political vision ... that the trade embargo is an anachronism ... in an age of openness and that Cuba should be treated like any other member of the international community."

Obama's presence in Havana "rounds out the president's policy toward the island," he added. Endi