Mike Mauricio does a lot of business in Cuba. Mauricio deals in food and produce and agricultural products and is planning an annual business trip to Cuba in April.

He laughs when asked about the situation.

“Nothing has changed,” he says outside a North Armenia Avenue Cuban sandwich shop.

Mauricio, 60, of Tampa is an American citizen whose grandparents emigrated from Cuba.

“Nothing is out of order,” he says, “This has been planned all along. It’s status quo.”

Change will not come to Cuba until the U.S. changes its political and trade policies, Mauricio says.

And that isn’t happening during this administration or any administration in the near future, he says. “All the politicians want the vote in Dade and Broward counties,” he said. And those voters are decidedly anti-Castro and pro-trade embargo.

With the abdication of Castro and the placing of his brother as new president, the Cuban government may create an environment of easing relations with its western neighbors.

If change comes at all, Mauricio says, “it will be a gradual change of some sort.”

He says the U.S. should take this opportunity to ease trade restrictions.

“The last soldier we lost in Cuba was during the Spanish-American War in 1898,” he says. “We lost 50,000 soldiers in Vietnam, and now, we’re trading with Vietnam and sending tourists there. I wouldn’t trade one cent of nothing in Vietnam,” he says.

He said the Cuba/U.S. policy is antiquated.

“He (Castro) has been there for 49 years. He has won the battle. He has won the war. He is going to die peacefully in Cuba. Nobody’s going to overthrow him.”

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