Biden’s quandary on the U.S. embargo of Cuba
U.S. President Joe Biden has an interesting political decision to make in the next few weeks.
Ever since the Cuba-sponsored resolution denouncing the U.S. blockade began in 1992, the U.S. government has routinely voted against the United Nations (UN) motion. Is Biden going to abstain, or say “no” once again, on the May vote in the General Assembly condemning the U.S. embargo against the island country — like Barack Obama abstained in October 2016?
Then-U.S. ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, remarked that the resolution was “a perfect example of why the U.S. policy of isolation toward Cuba was not working — or worse, how it was actually undermining the very goals it set out to achieve.” She went on to argue, however, that “abstaining on this resolution does not mean that the United States agrees with all the policies and practices of the Cuban government.”
For his part, Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, commended Ambassador Power for her abstention, but he indicated firmly: “The human damages caused by the blockade are incalculable.” (The overall tally in October 2016 was 191 votes in favour of the UN resolution, none opposed and just two abstentions.) He also added pointedly, “There isn’t any Cuban family or sector in our country that has not suffered from its effects.”
You might think that President Biden would be eager to normalize relations with neighbouring Cuba. Having spent eight years as vicepresident in Obama’s White House, which secured a diplomatic entente with Havana in December 2014, it is a bit of a mystery as to why he hasn’t emulated Obama’s approach.
It is, of course, worth pointing out that most of Obama’s meaningful Cuba moves came in his second term in office. So I suppose that we shouldn’t be totally surprised at Biden’s initial reticence.
Still, on March 3 of 2021, a group of 75 U.S. Democratic legislators wrote a letter to President Biden arguing strenuously that he should be “promptly returning to the Obama-Biden Administration policy of engagement and normalization of relations.” One outspoken Massachusetts Democrat, Representative Jim McGovern, said this on the House floor two weeks later: “The last two years of the Obama administration saw an explosion of positive change in Cuba. The fledgling Cuban private sector flourished, innovation, the internet, communications and political space expanded, and exchanges between our two peoples multiplied. …Dialogues began on tough topics like economic reform and human rights.”
Strong Republican pushback came, however, from right-leaning and anti-Castro Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott (both from Florida) and Ted Cruz of Texas. All three have pledged to oppose “any motions or consent requests with regard to any legislation that seeks to amend our nation’s policy toward Cuba.” Further complicating matters is the stiff opposition of Democratic Senator from New Jersey (which has roughly 100,000 Cuban-American voters) Robert Menendez — the Chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee — who is staunchly against any efforts to soften U.S. Cuba policy.
There has been some chatter about the Biden Administration moving to rescind a number of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 240 or so punitive measures against Cuba — including removing harmful restrictions on financial remittances and family travel to the island. But it now appears that any significant action on Cuba will be consigned to a diplomatic holding pattern as the Biden team conducts an overall review of relations with Cuba.
As White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told a media briefing on March 7, “A Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities.” She then went on to emphasize: “But we are committed to making human rights a core pillar of our U.S. policy and we are committed to carefully reviewing policy decisions made in the prior administration, including the decision to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
A big part of the problem for the Biden White House is that it has its sights squarely set on the midterm congressional elections in November of 2022. It desperately wants to hold onto the Democratic House majority and even win back those two lost Democratic congressional districts last November in South Florida. The electoral reality is that Trump was hugely successful—largely by tainting Democratic candidates as “radical socialists” and soft on Cuba — in keeping Cuban-American voters mostly in the Republican Party column.
I still believe, though, that Biden will follow in Obama’s footsteps and abstain on the May vote in the UN. He needs to send a positive message to the increasingly restless progressive wing of the Democratic Party. And Biden also needs to signal to the Cubans that the bad old Trump days are over and that he is willing to deal with Cuba in a respectful, balanced and functional manner. But where things go from here between the two countries is anyone’s guess.