Biden to reverse Trump’s Cuba policy
Remittances, travel to island to resume for now, but other Obama-era overtures will take a while
WASHINGTON—Former U.S. president Barack Obama took historic steps to thaw the hostile, Cold War-era relationship with the island nation of Cuba, 193 kilometres south of Miami. Former president Donald Trump did his best to put everything back on ice.
Now, the Biden administration says it will lift some of Trump’s restrictions on business and travel between the U.S. and Cuba, and renew diplomatic talks.
But President Joe Biden’s initial actions will disappoint advocates longing for the more robust relationship that was emerging in the Obama years.
Although he promised during the campaign to aggressively reverse Trump’s Cuba policy, Biden’s plans will have to roll out more slowly than some of his advisers had hoped.
He faces stiff resistance in Congress from members opposed to détente with Cuba, including from one of the Senate’s most powerful Democrats. At the same time, Cuba’s behaviour has become more controversial with repression of dissidents and support for Venezuela. And Trump left numerous obstacles, such as declaring Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism, which takes time and a bundle of red tape to reverse.
The Biden government will remove harsh Trump restrictions that most directly harmed civilian Cubans, administration officials said. First of those are the limits on the amount of remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to their relatives on the island. The administration will also restore some of the wiring services, including Western Union, that are used to transmit the money and that the previous government blocked. The money is a lifeline for many Cubans.
Biden’s team also intends to allow more travel between the countries, people familiar with the plans said. U.S.-origin flights to various Cuban cities were opened under Obama, along with a large cruise ship itinerary. But those mostly shut down under Trump. Obama’s reasoning was that the exposure of Cubans to more westerners would plant the seeds of democratization; Trump’s people argued that a lot of the dollars spent by tourists and other visitors ended up in the hands of the Cuban military.
Cuban President Miguel DiazCanel has said he welcomes dialogue with Washington, but without preconditions.
Biden may also rebuild the staff at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, which sank to a skeleton crew under Trump, and resume issuing visas to Cuban nationals.
Obama’s opening with Cuba, announced in 2014, came in his second term, when he no longer had to worry about re-election and after the critical and traditionally Republican Florida vote in the 2012 contest had moved into his camp.
He re-established the U.S. Embassy in Havana, made the first trip there of an American president in 90 years, and oversaw the revival of numerous bilateral operations, like the interdiction of drug traffickers.
Biden, by contrast, must confront the issue early in his first term, when not only are Florida Republicans including Sen. Marco Rubio arrayed against him, but Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a hawk on Cuba, is ascending to the powerful chairmanship of the Senate foreign relations committee.