Cubans applaud Biden win, hope for easing of sanctions

HAVANA, (Reuters) - Drivers honked their horns and applause erupted in Havana yesterday after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election, reflecting hopes on the Communist-run island that he would seek to improve U.S.-Cuban ties.

Many Cubans say they do not expect the Democratic former U.S. vice president to lift the decades-old American trade embargo on the Cuba or that bilateral relations will return to the heady days of detente under former President Barack Obama.

But they feel encouraged by Biden’s assurances he will promptly reverse President Donald Trump’s policies that “have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights.”

“I’m tremendously happy,” said Miriam Corrales, 68, a retired economist, who applauded after the news was announced on Cuban state television.

“Biden gives me the impression he will do everything possible to ease sanctions and leave behind the pressures we experienced with Trump.”

The Trump administration unraveled much of Obama’s detente, reverting instead to a decades-old U.S. policy of choking Cuba’s already inefficient state-run economy to force democratic reforms, exacerbating shortages of even basic goods.

“Trump wanted to bury us alive,” said Mercedes Rodríguez, 43, a teacher whose livelihood, like that many of many Cubans, was directly impacted by Trump’s measures. Her sister in the United States sends money every few months to supplement her low salary. But just 10 days before the Nov. 3 U.S. election, the Trump administration announced measures that will likely prevent U.S. money transfers to Cuba.

A top Biden foreign policy adviser told Reuters on condition of anonymity last week that the Democrat would “reverse the decisions that are separating families, limitations on family travel and remittances” if he won the White House.