US view of Cuban reforms

Apr. 4 - In an interview with Reuters, the State Department's top diplomat for Latin America Tom Shannon said recent reforms in Cuba showed pressure for change was building inside the communist island.

Cuba must make bolder reforms, free political prisoners and improve human rights before Washington can engage President Raul Castro and end a half-century of isolation, Shannon told Reuters. Raul Castro, since officially succeeding his ailing brother Fidel Castro as president in February, has begun lifting some of the state's economic restrictions. Cubans can now buy computers, DVDs and other products, stay at tourist resorts and access cell phone service, all previously off-limits. Shannon said changes could not just be about what Cubans could buy. Shannon also spoke to Reuters about NAFTA.

Both Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have suggested they might withdraw from NAFTA, the 14-year-old trade deal linking the United States, Canada and Mexico. That is a bad idea, Shannon says, because it has enhanced the three countries' trade to the tune of over $900 billion a year without decimating the industrial sector. "NAFTA, strategically, is probably the biggest and most important thing that has happened to North America since the Louisiana Purchase, and we need to understand that this is something that benefits the United States," Shannon said. In 1803, the United States purchased a large swathe of French territory then called Louisiana -- stretching from present-day Canada to the Gulf of Mexico -- from France essentially for a song. His advice for handling NAFTA in the future: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."