How President Biden
Can Manage Cuba
By John McAuliff
Five years
ago I stood in a mostly Cuban crowd outside of the US embassy in Havana, excitedly
watching our flag be raised for the first time in 54 years. Two hours later I was at a celebratory party
at the US Ambassador’s residence, a beautiful building designed but never used
as a Winter White House for FDR. Scores
of official and non-official Americans who had worked for normalization were
there, along with diplomats from other countries. No one from the Cuban government attended
because the embassy had invited a few prominent dissidents.
The path to
this day had not been easy because of political distrust on both side and was a
tribute to the determination of both Presidents Obama and Castro. None of us expected the future would be
simple. However we never anticipated
that virtually all would be undone by the election of Donald Trump.
Cuba relations
will hardly be the largest problem or the first priority of a Biden
Administration, but it is low hanging fruit.
While minorities are loudly in favor or against US engagement with the
island, most Americans, including Cuban-Americans, were quietly supportive of
President Obama’s normalization path and even inclined to go further on travel.
Biden can
rapidly and effectively build on Obama’s opening. He will do at least as well with personally
invested Florida voters by convincing them his goal is a positive relationship
with the homeland of their parents, children and other family members. He can counteract the narrowminded regression
of President Trump for whom Cuba policies were little more than a favor to Marco
Rubio and to Vladimir Putin.
Biden will
be able to signal his concern for the well-being of the people of both nations,
his desire to strengthen pro-market reforms and the need to practically counteract
growing Russian and Chinese influence. His Administration will solidify a historic
new chapter of post Monroe Doctrine post Platt Amendment US partnership with
the hemisphere.
Biden’s
campaign is already publicly critical of the latest punitive pettiness of the
Trump Administration, prohibition of rare private charter flights. He has told Americas Quarterly, “as
president, I will promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have
inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and
human rights”. https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2020/08/joe-biden-and-kamala-harris-on-cuba.html
Biden will
certainly receive support from his Vice President. Senator Kamala Harris is among 46 bipartisan cosponsors
of the Leahy bill to end all restrictions on travel to Cuba.
He can also expect
an abrazo, a hug, from the First Lady whose moving cultural visit to
Camaguey and Havana was portrayed in an Obama White House video. https://youtu.be/hc6NiDbVepI
Biden has
four stages of opportunity that would cut the Gordian knot of six decades of
intractable mutually destructive US-Cuba relations.
1) During the campaign or right after election: Announce that immediately upon taking
office he will restore Obama policies on individual and group travel licenses,
cruises, flights to regional cities, remittances, import of agricultural
products, specific types of investments and banking and international shipping
as well as facilitation of visas for educational and cultural exchange. Clarify that Cubans granted visas for family
and professional visits and for study in the US will be deemed ineligible to
claim status under the Cuban Adjustment Act. (Depending on US success in
controlling Covid-19, an announcement of intention allows planning for the
winter season and spring semester by the travel sector and universities.)
2) Within the first year: Fully restaff an embassy gutted by a Secretary
of State and President who were opportunistically intimidated by inexplicable
health problems. Reopen consular authority and restore visas
for immigration and family reunion visits.
Support Leahy/McGovern legislation to totally end restrictions on travel
and for comparable initiatives in agricultural and medical sales as well as on
related financial transactions. Enable
collaboration in medicine and science, including on anti-Covid research,
treatment and international assistance. Return to abstention on the UN
vote against the unilateral US embargo. Resuspend Title III of Helms-Burton to stop
annoyance suits by Cuban Americans for property they lost before they had any
claim as US citizens.
Break new
ground. To test and support economic
reforms, terminate application of the embargo to privately owned small and
medium Cuban enterprises, permitting their exports, imports and American investments. Cooperate with Cuba to confirm Canadian
research that chemical toxins not illusive sound waves caused illness of
embassy personnel and to discover who was responsible. Stop all US government funding
of projects within Cuba that are not vetted through normal diplomatic channels
with a host government.
3) Within the first two years: Align with Hemispheric and European goals
by achieving through comprehensive negotiations a political settlement in
Venezuela and an end to the unilateral US embargo of Cuba. Open
consulates in at least one Cuban and one US city. Begin ferry service between US and Cuban
ports. Support with governmental, corporate and
foundation funds wide ranging cultural, educational, professional and business
exchanges. Seek reciprocal dampening of interventionist
hostility by state funded publications, broadcasts and social media, replaced
by ongoing multi sectoral dialog about conflicting values and ideologies.
4) Within the first term: Follow the road map to restore full Cuban sovereignty
of the Guantanamo base that was developed by Ben Rhodes and Alejandro Castro during
Obama’s normalization discussions. Explore
transforming the military outpost and prison into a free trade zone,
hemispheric medical research center and cruise port.
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