President Biden’s Missing A Big Opportunity In Cuba
He should take a page from Barack Obama for his first step forward to help the Cuban people
Since his inauguration nearly six months ago, President Biden has consistently surprised people with just how ready he’s been to take decisive action on even controversial issues.
Just take the Keystone XL pipeline, as one example.
Biden killed that environmental time-bomb literally with one stroke of his pen.
And he’s gone big and bold on getting the coronavirus pandemic under control, getting economic assistance into the hands of Americans — and so much more.
So it’s certainly a surprise that the president hasn’t used the massive street protests which have erupted this week across Cuba, to likewise take characteristic bold action.
Granted, the protests which began Sunday — sparked by days of limited electricity in the sweltering heat, food shortages and ongoing threat of infection by coronavirus — are unprecedented in post-revolution Cuba over the last six decades or so and no doubt took even Washington DC’s foreign policy leadership unawares.
However, part of any president’s job is to not only adapt to world events which sometimes can change in an instant — but be able to capitalize on those fast-moving changes.
What is happening in Cuba is just such an opportunity.
And, really, all President Biden would have to do, to look forward-reaching and progressive in this environment, would be to simply return US relations with Cuba back to where his old boss, Barack Obama, had them in the last year of his administration.
Obama recognized that, decades after the end of the Cold War, that it made no logical reason to maintain a hardline, embargo-based stance with that poor, small island nation off the Florida coast.
So Obama liberalized those relations to allow such things as freer travel of Americans to Cuba and freer remittances of funds from those in the United States back to loved ones in Cuba.
However, less than a year later, Donald Trump reversed all of that, and returned Cuba to the list of nations which sponsor terrorism.
So, really, for Biden to take a step forward for Cuba — in the midst of this upheaval — all he need do is return to the Obama policy for Cuba relations, and at least look like he’s pro-actively engaged in moving the ball forward — at least until Biden and his foreign policy team figure out what to do next.
But instead of bold action from the president, Secretary of State Antony Blinken briefed reporters about an ongoing “policy review,” and only that “we’re looking carefully and closely at … what is happening.”
Come on, Mr. President: You can do better. We’ve seen it from you, time and again. And this time, you need only take your cues from your old boss.
