ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
The Trump administration continues to turn up the heat on Cuba. The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its strike group are in the Caribbean. The U.S. military announced the buildup the same day that...
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TODD BLANCHE: We are announcing an indictment charging Raúl Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals.
FLORIDO: Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche secured charges against the former Cuban president who is still one of the most influential political figures in the island nation. That is on top of a U.S. blockade on oil shipments to the country that's caused a rapid economic collapse. And also this week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a U.S. business that wants to recover its losses from property seized in the revolution, allowing a lawsuit for millions of dollars of compensation to move forward. The U.S. has long demanded that Cuba repay people and companies whose property the communist government took.
We've called on American University professor William LeoGrande - he's an expert on U.S. policy towards Latin America - to help us understand how that long unresolved issue fits into the context of the current political crisis on the island. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Thanks for joining us.
WILLIAM LEOGRANDE: My pleasure.
FLORIDO: Castro's government sees all kinds of private property - American oil refineries, sugar plantations, shipping docks - but also the homes and businesses and ranches of Cubans who fled the revolution and moved to the U.S.. Why is the U.S. demand that that property be returned or compensated so important right now?
LEOGRANDE: Well, it really goes back to the origin of the split between Cuba and the United States in 1959, 1960. The very first expropriation that the Cuban government made was an agrarian reform that seized sugar plantations, many of which were owned by U.S. investors. And then in 1960, Castro just seized essentially all U.S. property and, over the next few months, most of the private property that Cubans owned, as well. So this is really the foundational grievance, if you will, that the United States had with Cuba. And every U.S. president since then who's talked with Cuba about the possibility of improving relations has always had the issue of claims on the agenda.
FLORIDO: The U.S. created a commission that processes claims by companies and by Cuban Americans who say that they're owed property or compensation by Cuba. Those claims are worth about $9 billion. Cuba does not have that kind of money to pay these claims. So how does this get resolved?
LEOGRANDE: No, Cuba surely does not have that amount of money. The Cuban government acknowledges that it owes compensation to the U.S. investors who lost property, and it's actually settled claims with the investors from other countries that lost property at time. But Cuba has counterclaims against the United States for damage done by the embargo and by the CIA's paramilitary war against the island back in the 1960s. But if both sides have the political will to resolve it, there are a variety of different models that can be used that would potentially give a pathway other than just Cuba making a $9 billion lump-sum payment, which, of course, they can't do.
FLORIDO: Congress has said that these companies and people - that they must be paid back or get their property back before the U.S. lifts its decades-old economic embargo on Cuba. Does this congressional requirement written into law complicate the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the current crisis?
LEOGRANDE: Oh, it certainly complicates it. The 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act says that both U.S. claimants and Cuban American claimants must be compensated in order for the U.S. economic embargo to be lifted. Title III of that law also gives claimants the right to sue, in U.S. federal court, anyone who is making beneficial use of their nationalized property. The Supreme Court case was a case brought under Title III of that law.
FLORIDO: Professor, what incentive does Cuba have to recognize these claims to pay people back for property taken, you know, almost seven decades ago?
LEOGRANDE: Well, the first one is to clear the way for foreign investors to come back to the island. It's in pretty desperate need of an infusion of foreign capital. So to draw in foreign companies and eventually U.S. companies, those claims are going to have to be resolved. The Cuban American claims are tougher because the people involved were Cuban citizens at the time. It was Cuban property. And so the Cuban government's opinion is that it's none of the U.S.'s business.
But I think the Cuban government would still be wise to come up with some sort of a formula for compensating Cuban American claimants in exchange for them coming back to the island and re-engaging economically with the island. Cuban Americans, because they have an emotional attachment to their homeland, are more willing to take those risks and more likely to be the first movers who will go in and get the Cuban economy started again.
FLORIDO: You know, everywhere you go in the Cuban American community, you hear these stories of - Castro took my family's house, my family's ranch, my family's business. It's such an open wound within the community all these decades later. Why is it still so important for people to get compensation for land that maybe was taken from their grandparents who aren't even alive anymore?
LEOGRANDE: Well, because it is so deeply personal. I know a number of Cuban Americans who are less interested in actually recovering the property than they are having the Cuban government admit that it did them an injustice and compensate them for it. And I think that would really go a long, long way to healing some of those wounds and reuniting Cuban population and the diaspora.
FLORIDO: I've been speaking with William LeoGrande, professor of government and an expert on Cuba at American University here in Washington. Professor, thank you so much for joining us.
LEOGRANDE: Thanks for having me on. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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