Foreign desk: Dems’ Losing Bet on Cuba

“There is no foreign-policy issue in the United States that is less ‘foreign’ than the Cuba policy,” argues Carlos Gustavo Poggio Teixeira at The Hill. The “case of Cuba is unique,” because it’s “directly connected to the presidential elections. The reason: Florida’s 29 electoral votes.” More than two-thirds of the country’s 2.5 million Cuban Americans live in the swing state, making them “a particularly prized electoral asset.” Former President Barack Obama made a “bet that history was going the Democrats’ way,” with polling suggesting Republicans were losing ground with the group, but history “has taken a turn”: “Cuban Americans have become more conservative” since 2016. President Biden’s response to protests roiling the island was “mostly meaningless statements of solidarity” and “even more meaningless ‘individual sanctions’ whose practical effects are exactly zero.” Dems “do not know how to respond” to their lost bet.