Ben Rhodes

was like they could have credibility in Cuba and in the United States.

They could have credibility across these divides between left and right, between power and those without power, between global north, global south.

And so I just think that this has served to make Trump look smaller and he will continue to shrink relative to people like Leo.

The terms of the deal were the Cubans released Alan Gross, who was imprisoned in Cuba.

They released a CIA asset down there, too.

So it was kind of a spy swap in exchange for a few Cubans that had been imprisoned in the United States.

But beyond that prisoner exchange, the Cubans also released, I think, 53 political prisoners that we had on our list.

But beyond that, we agreed to reopen embassies, reestablish diplomatic relations.

We couldn't promise to lift the embargo on Cuba because that's legislative, but we agreed to kind of reopen commerce and travel to Cuba as much as we could from the U.S.

side.

And they, in turn, agreed to increase Internet access for Cubans and to reciprocate in changes in their economy by...

growing their private sector, where they were letting Cubans own small businesses, restaurants, taxis, things like this.

Now, those are the terms of the deal.

The bigger point was we were just betting, hey, look, this policy is crazy.

We've had it for 60 years.

It hurts Cubans.

They suffer in extreme poverty.

It's entrenched, and this is important, the Communist Party in power, because they deal well in a hermetically sealed economy where there's no foreign investment.

Our bet was you open this up, you let Americans travel down there, you let Americans invest there, this place that's 90 miles from Florida is going to change.

Cubans' lives will get better.