IMF, World Bank should bring Cuba “in from cold”

(Reuters): The international development community, especially financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank, and the United States should reach out to communist Cuba as it pursues economic reforms and bring it “in from the cold,” a new think tank report says.

The report published by the Brookings Institution in Washington says incipient economic reforms set in motion by Cuban President Raul Castro should be encouraged by the world’s economic policy makers because history suggests that such reforms can foster political pluralism.

“In approaching Cuban economic reform, the United States should join with the international development community in nudging forward that irresistible flow of history,” said the report, which will be released Friday.

The report’s author, Richard Feinberg, is a non-resident senior fellow with the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton for National Security Affairs and senior director of the National Security Council’s (NSC) Office of Inter-American Affairs.

The Brookings publication is one of several reports by U.S. think tanks and institutions that have appeared in recent weeks urging President Barack Obama’s administration to pay close attention to the reforms currently under way in Cuba, which remains the target of a long-running U.S. economic embargo.

President Castro’s reforms, endorsed by Cuba’s ruling Communist Party in an April Congress, include ground-breaking measures such as allowing Cubans to buy and sells cars and homes.