Back in January, I predicted that the U.S. embargo against Cuba would be lifted within twenty four months. The President had just implemented a series of travel, commercial and remittance reforms towards the island, and I viewed the move as the first of many that would end six decades of failed isolationist policy. Five months removed from that prediction, I stand by its accuracy and will venture to say that the embargo will be lifted even sooner...by July 1, 2016 (eighteen months from January, 2015). Here's why... Originally, I chose twenty four months because it was the amount of time that President Obama had left in office. The prediction had nothing to do with human rights, business opportunities or simply admitting our Cuba policy has failed. Unfortunately, it was, and still remains, a matter of politics. As the 2016 Presidential election heats up, the President will turn the embargo into a political hot potato and make any Republican that opposes its lifting look like a Latin Hater. With the GOP so keen on the Latin vote, they will fall in line and that will be it for the embargo. However cynical this might sound, you can be sure that even those candidates with true Latin street cred (read Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush), will fold under this political pressure. Apart from the political component, there are other reasons to believe that the embargo will be lifted sooner, rather than later. First off, Cuba lost the patronage of Russia years ago and now Venezuela is so far in the tank that they can't prop up the Cuban economy anymore, either. The Castro's need some new friends in the hemisphere and now would be a good time to rekindle relations with the U.S. Second, the business bonanza in Cuba is already heating up and the U.S. could be odd man out. For example, Brazil put up close to $1b to rebuild the port of Mariel in exchange for Cuba's promise to buy the same amount in goods and services from their country. Additionally, there are more than twenty proposals on the desk of Raul Castro to modernize Cuba's infrastructure, including several from America's number one geo-political rival, China. If the U.S. waits too long to lift the embargo, we may have a lot more to lose than business.  Third, the U.S. recently removed Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, which was a major obstacle towards normalizing relations with the island. With Cuba off that list, one of the few remaining issues has to do with the value of businesses that were nationalized by Fidel Castro back in the fifties, and how the surviving U.S. corporations will be compensated for their losses (with interest). This issue will be the next to fall...perhaps some loans to Cuba from the World Bank and/or IMF to pay damages will help the process along. Fourth, the widening of the Panama Canal positions Cuba as a global and hemispheric player in maritime trade. Brazil's investment in Mariel was not a random event and it won't be long before Cuba becomes a major trans-shipping point for much larger ships coming out of Asia to the U.S. via the Canal. If you don't believe that, go ask CMA CGM, the world's third largest steamship line, why they just signed a long term deal to operate out of Mariel. This shift in maritime leverage is important to the U.S. and we need to be in that game, too. Fifth, and this is admittedly the least quantifiable factor, Raul Castro just visited the Vatican. It may sound trivial to some, but let's not forget that it was Pope John Paul II that helped take down the Soviet Union. Perhaps Pope Francis feels the same sense of obligation to freeing people from Communism as John Paul II did. Or, it might be that Mr. Castro sees his own end in sight and wants to make some way-too-late amends for what he and his brother did to their own people. Either way, be sure that the Catholic Church will take an active role in seeing the U.S. embargo lifted.  Finally, and this would definitely be the best reason ever, maybe Congress will have the good sense to lift the embargo because it is simply the right thing to do. Everyone in the world knows (with the possible exception of Congress itself) that the embargo is a Cold War artifact that only served to harm the Cuban people. It is high time that the embargo is lifted and this sixty-year long pissing contest comes to an abrupt end. I'm rooting 100% for the Cuban people on this one and my call is that the embargo ends by July 1, 2016. The betting line is open, any takers?