President Castro could not have been clearer. Speaking before Christmas to the Cuban National Assembly about the US, he said that the country had in 2017 “witnessed a serious, irrational deterioration in relations”.
Avoiding mentioning President Trump by name, he said, however, that Cuba would “continue working [with the US] to preserve, to the extent possible, the spaces for exchange and cooperation established in recent years” and was willing to continue negotiating bilateral issues on the basis of equality and respect for Cuban sovereignty.
These are lessons that Europe has learned well following years when, quite literally, Havana ignored most of its member states as a consequence of its adoption of the now-abandoned 1996 EU Common Position which contained US-encouraged political conditions on improving relations.
In a demonstration of the
