HAVANA – When the Trump administration announced this week that it designated Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism, the reaction in Havana was quick and loud.
The Cuban government accused Washington of hypocrisy and called President Trump’s “political opportunism” label to obstruct relations between Cuba and President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s next administration.
In addition to indignation, however, Cubans are ready to move on, a feeling underlined by their president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who tweeted on Tuesday that the American decision had been made “in the throes of a failed and corrupt administration”.
For the Cuban government and its people, the change in American presidential administrations cannot happen soon.
Trump’s hard-line approach to the Cuban leadership has led to a series of restrictions on tourism, visas, remittances, investments and trade, which have worsened an already poor economy. The pandemic has aggravated the problems, largely by paralyzing tourism, an important source of foreign currency.
Facing a profound shortage of staple items such as medicine and food, Cubans were forced to stand in line for hours hoping to get their hands on the meager existing stocks. Supplies were so scarce that the government made it illegal for people to buy rice in addition to their government-restricted monthly quotas.
In the midst of these difficulties, many in Cuba expect Biden to change American policy in order to ease economic pressure. The president-elect said little publicly about his policy objectives for Cuba, although during the campaign he attacked Trump’s approach in Havana, saying: “Cuba is no closer to freedom and democracy today than it was four years ago.”
And Biden’s advisers admitted that normalizing relations with Cuba – essentially a return to the detente of the Obama era – was the best strategy for effecting positive change.
Senior foreign policy personnel on the Biden transition team – including Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, and Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s nominee for secretary of homeland security – were involved in negotiations with Cuba during Obama’s second term.
“Biden’s team is not just falling from a parachute with no previous experience,” said Rafael Hernández, political scientist and editor-in-chief at Temas, Cuba’s leading social science magazine. “They can take the consensus they created during 2015-2016.”
And that is the hope of many in Cuba.
“Biden means: I hope the worst is over,” said Hal Klepak, professor emeritus of history and strategy at the Royal Military College of Canada, who lives part time in Havana. “He means: the possibility of a renewed Obama-style opening. That is to say: listen to the CIA, the Pentagon and Homeland Security about the value of Cuba as a friend and collaborator and not as an enemy ”.
The decision to return Cuba to the list of states accused of sponsoring terrorism – a term that lasted more than three decades, until President Obama withdrew it in 2015 – crowned the Trump administration’s tireless effort to impose economic and diplomatic restrictions on the country . island.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others “worked with a focus on revoking anything that could be seen as a benefit to the Cuban government,” said Ted A. Henken, associate professor of sociology at Baruch College in New York.
Although Trump’s company was considering investing in Cuba shortly before he took office, as president he hit the Communist-ruled island with the toughest sanctions in more than half a century. American cruise ships were banned from docking on the island, shipments from the United States were banned, and oil tankers carrying oil from Venezuela were prevented from arriving with their cargo.
“The only thing left is diplomatic relations,” said Henken. “We still have official diplomatic relations with Cuba, although they are frozen in practice.”
These efforts by the Trump administration to reverse Obama’s initiatives delayed the development of the private sector in Cuba and undermined the efforts of American companies trying to build relationships based on Obama’s detente, he said.
Amid the restrictions, the streets of the colonial district of Havana, once full of tourists, suffered a sharp drop in traffic, decreasing further during the pandemic. Fuel shortages led to occasional blackouts and worsened transportation. A drop in foreign exchange for imports meant, in some places, the empty shelves of pharmacies.
But the abysmal economy apparently did not harm the leadership of Díaz-Canel, a loyal Communist Party who became president in 2018 and whose government continued to repress political dissent.
Díaz-Canel, a discreet figure handpicked by his predecessor, Raúl Castro, emphasized the continuity of the Castro era, but also advanced with economic reforms.
On January 1, he unified the country’s dual currency system to make the island’s labyrinthine economy more transparent and easier to navigate for foreign investors. Last year, his government allowed the private sector to import and export directly, a move that analysts described as a pragmatic response to the economic crisis.
Díaz-Canel has been silent, at least publicly, about the potential for a thaw after Biden’s inauguration. But on November 8, he acknowledged Biden’s victory with a hint of hope, writing on Twitter: “We recognize that the people of the United States have chosen a new course in the presidential election. We believe in the possibility of having a constructive bilateral relationship respecting our differences ”.
Should Biden attempt to normalize relations with Cuba, the Díaz-Canel government will demand the removal of the designation of terrorism as a condition, analysts said.
When Obama announced during his second term that he would normalize relations with Havana, the Cuban government was adamant about being removed from the list.
“The reason this is so sensitive for Cubans is that they have been subjected to literally hundreds of terrorist attacks,” most of which were launched by Cuban exiles based in the United States and trained and organized by the CIA, said William LeoGrande, professor of government of American University in Washington.
Therefore, Cubans, he said, “are very offended by being labeled as supporters of terrorists.”
In reinstating Cuba to the terrorism list, Pompeo cited the fact that Cuba hosts 10 Colombian rebel leaders, along with a handful of American fugitives wanted for crimes committed in the 1970s, and Cuba’s support for Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.
While the Cuban government protested on social media and in the Cuban media against the designation of terrorism, some Cubans processed the news with tired frustration.
“The US is doing this to blow things up here,” said Liber Salvat, 35, a carpenter in central Havana who is unemployed and has not been able to get his hands on wood since the pandemic began.
“It would be better,” he said, “if they helped us.”
Ed Augustin reported from Havana and Kirk Semple from Mexico City.