Cubama

CAUTION has been a watchword in the foreign policy of Barack Obama. But in one part of the world he has been adventurous. For any of the nine preceding American presidents, his planned visit to the Cuba of Raúl and Fidel Castro, on March 21st and 22nd, would have been unthinkable (see ). It crowns a bold gambit in which Mr Obama has restored diplomatic relations, frozen for 54 years, and begun to loosen the economic embargo against the island. He is betting that engagement with one of America’s neighbours will do more than isolation to bring its Communist regime to an end.Moreover, engagement with Cuba will lance a boil that has poisoned relations between the United States and the whole of Latin America. After a period in which China appeared to be displacing America in what some once called its backyard, those links could become increasingly warm and mutually profitable—so long as the next president seizes the opportunity. On the evidence of America’s rancorous election campaign, there is a danger that he or she will not (see ).