Costa Rican President, Oscar Arias, re-established relations with Cuba in the spirit of progress. He felt that the official coldness that had characterized diplomatic relations between the two countries since 1961 had gone on long enough. With his new administration, Obama has worked hard to change the face of the United States. Already his administration has started anew with Russia and offered talks with Iran showing the world that this is a new America. The US will likely recognize and establish diplomacy with Cuba in the near future.

Diplomatic relations with Cuba were cut off in 1961 when Fidel Castro overthrew the island in the name of Communism. With this was a US sanctioned trade embargo that has left the Cuban people one of the poorest of the hemisphere. Despite their educations, many Cubans are well educated doctors, lawyers, accountants or scientists, they receive only a base pay and trade and immigration bans block them from fair prices and opportunity in better paying markets.

With Castro’s recent hand over of power to his brother Raul, Cuba too has taken on somewhat of a new face. Castro has been a symbol of Cuba, being in power as long as ten presidents, and also of communism. With him no longer the figure head of the government, the American people as well as the office of the president owe it to the Cuban people to take another look at the relation between the two nations.

Obama has already shown and I believe will continue to show and prove that he is not the run of the mill president. He has ideals in accordance with the principles on which the nation was founded and now he is in the position to put some of them back into effect. If he is able to get away from the financial crisis that seems to be a bottomless pit, he will be able to do a lot of good for America on the international level. The US did not become a world leader because it was a financial center, it became a financial leader because it first lead the world with its ideals and a will to see them come to life.