Opinion: A hot mic is latest sign that Biden may make big changes in U.S.-Cuba relations, but . . .
Joe was here — in Florida — again. State pundits think it’s all about a DeSantis 2024 run, but there’s more at play.
The unmistakable signs that the Democratic president is considering new U.S.-Cuba policy, and possibly moving toward full restoration of relations, are popping up everywhere.
No, President Joe Biden didn’t utter the word “Cuba” during his smash-hit State of the Union address, where he turned Republican heckling into political cash. Only Ukraine, Putin and China occupied his foreign-policy concerns during his speech.
But afterward, during greetings, Cuba all of a sudden seemed to be on Biden’s mind.
Crowded by members of Congress, Biden spotted the lone Democratic Cuban-American senator in Congress, Bob Menendez, of New Jersey.
And, in front of everyone, Biden asked him for a meeting.
“Bob, I gotta talk to you about Cuba,” the president said, all smiles.
“OK,” Menendez, a key Biden ally except on this subject, unenthusiastically replied.
Menendez chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and last year he harshly criticized Biden’s opening of American travel to the island as “visits akin to tourism” in the aftermath of “ruthless persecution of countless Cubans from all walks of life.”
But Biden wasn’t fazed by Menendez’s taciturn response.
“I’m serious,” the president added, his facial features expanding, seemingly emphasizing that he meant it, the brief exchange becoming all the more titillating because it was captured on a hot mic.
Impressive, this Joe, the wrangler.
But will Biden really listen to what Menendez has to say when pro-Cuba actors in the United States — not the brightest minds in the pillbox — are avidly campaigning to open up to Cuba without gaining any concessions from the repressive regime?
NO PEACHY REGIME
A Yahoo News “senior columnist” who recently traveled to Cuba published Wednesday a widely circulating op-ed and appeared on video downplaying the aggressive nature of the Cuban regime and blaming the United States for the island’s wretched state.
He falsely claimed that Cuban people have the right to criticize the government. Sure, buddy, hundreds are only in prison for the fancy food rations. He talked up Cuban restaurants when people are starving. To portray a peachy version of Cuba, he used the same kitschy images of Che Guevara posters and glorified Havana squalor that we saw peddled ad nauseam during the Obama engagement era.
It’s exhausting to keep harping on American idiocy when it comes to Cuba.
As Cubans flee, U.S. travel operators peddle a tone-deaf, pastel view of an island paradise | Opinion
The question is: Which Joe Biden will show up at the negotiation table with the regime’s ambassadors? The one who knows Latin America better than President Barack Obama did?
So far, it looks like the Biden who said while campaigning that he would reverse Trump’s isolationist policies in favor of diplomacy — yet appeared uninterested in substantially moving the political needle on Cuba during the first half of his first term — has left the White House for good.
Another tell-tale sign that his administration is eagerly engaging with the region’s left-wing regimes is the release of 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners, swiftly put on a U.S.-bound flight.
Ortega suddenly frees 222 political prisoners in
Nicaragua and sends them to the U.S.
Will the same happen with Cuba’s top political prisoners, imprisoned since the historic July 11, 2021, protests?
Their release was supposed to be a top condition for re-engagement, according to sources, although the administration only admits to “migration talks” on the record. But leader Daniel Ortega agreeing to Nicaragua’s prisoner release opens the door for the Cuban regime to save face while releasing theirs.
Make no mistake. The oppressors win when they rid themselves of opposition at home.
But the United States also benefits because even cold, but existing, relations lead to American tourism and business investments that employ a population less likely to flee en masse and show up at U.S. borders seeking asylum.
Let’s face it: Biden and his people know that controlling the borders will be a key election issue in 2024. Immigrant-shuttling Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it a major sore point in Florida.
CUBAN-AMERICAN VOTE
Yet, Biden proved in 2020 that he doesn’t really need Florida — or the Cuban-American vote — to win the presidency.
He beat Donald Trump without carrying the state, and a match with DeSantis on the GOP ticket, all the more possible as Trump’s stock dips lower by the day, makes the possibility of Biden winning Florida all the more doubtful.
Despite DeSantis’ increasingly despotic tendencies, too many Cuban Americans see him as a more effective, improved version of Trump. He might be an autocrat, but he’s their kind of autocrat: right-wing.
The state of American politics doesn’t favor a democratic turn for Cuba.
Hyper-partisanship has weakened the power of Cuban Americans to influence Cuba policy.
Except for Democrats who have Biden’s ear, Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade have lost clout after abandoning the formula that brought them success in Washington decades ago: bipartisanship.
The most effective lobby group — the wealthy Cuban American National Foundation, styled on the Jewish lobby — knew playing both sides of the aisle kept the voting bloc powerful. While its leader Jorge Mas Canosa talked tough in front of his Miami audiences and seemed to court only the hardline, his organization donated generously to members of both parties, and he dabbled in talks with Cuban regime officials abroad.
Still, the needle on Cuba hasn’t moved; the Cold War lives on, even postengagement.
Obama worked the bipartisan angle as well, and he won Florida twice.
To open Cuba, he recruited Republicans to support his engagement theory, persuading prominent Cuban Americans to travel to the island for the first time. The late Mas Canosa’s son, Jorge, hosted Obama in his home.
Biden faces a different political landscape, both handicap and opportunity.
His nod to Menendez could be the latter.
Fabiola Santiago: 305-376-3469, @fabiolasantiago