HAVANA – When the Trump administration announced this week that it was designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, the response in Havana was swift and loud.
The Cuban government accuses Washington of hypocrisy and calls the label an act of “political opportunism” by President Trump over relations between Cuba and the incoming government of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Beyond indignation, however, Cubans are ready to go on, a sentiment underscored by their president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who tweeted Tuesday that the US decision was taken in ‘the death throes of a failed and corrupt government’.
For the Cuban government and its people, the change in US presidential administrations cannot come soon enough.
Mr. Trump’s harsh approach to the Cuban leadership has led to a variety of restrictions on tourism, visas, overpayments, investment and trade, which have exacerbated an already weak economy. The pandemic exacerbated the problems, mainly by halting tourism, a major source of foreign exchange.
The Cubans are being forced to stand in line for hours hoping to get the meager supplies there, while having severe shortages of necessities such as medicine and food. Stocks became so thin that the government made it illegal for people to buy rice outside of their monthly government-restricted allowances.
In the midst of this hardship, many in Cuba hope that Mr. Praying US policies will change in a way that can alleviate economic coercion. The president-elect has said little in public about his policy goals for Cuba, although during the campaign he attacked Trump’s approach to Havana, saying, “Cuba is no closer to freedom and democracy today than it was four years ago.”
And Biden’s advisers have allowed a normalization of relations with Cuba – essentially a return to the Obama era – to be the best strategy to bring about positive change.
Senior foreign policy personnel in the Biden transition team – including Antony Blinken, nominated candidate for foreign minister, and Alejandro Mayorkas, nominated candidate for secretary of home security – were involved in negotiations with Cuba during Obama’s second term.
“Biden’s team does not just fall into the parachute without prior experience,” said Rafael Hernández, a political scientist and editor-in-chief of Temas, Cuba’s leading social science journal. “They can reach the consensus they created during 2015-2016.”
And that is the hope of many people in Cuba.
“Biden means: hope the worst is over,” said Hal Klepak, emeritus professor of history and strategy at the Royal Military College in Canada, part-time in Havana. ‘He means: the possibility of a renewed Obama style. He meant: listen to the CIA, the Pentagon and Homeland Security about the value of Cuba as a friend and collaborator and not an enemy. ‘
The decision to put Cuba back on the list of states accused of sponsoring terrorism – a term that lasted for more than three decades, until President Obama lifted it in 2015 – has a relentless attempt by the Trump government around economic and diplomatic restrictions on the island.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others “worked with a focus on recalling everything that could be considered a benefit to the Cuban government,” said Ted A. Henken, associate professor of sociology at the Baruch. College in New York, said.
Although Mr. Trump’s company in Cuba shortly before his acceptance of investment in Cuba looked on, he hit the communist island with the toughest sanctions in more than half a century. American cruise ships were banned from landing on the island, money sent from America was banned and tankers transporting oil from Venezuela were prevented from arriving with their cargo.
“The only thing left is diplomatic relations,” he said. Henken said. “We still have official diplomatic relations with Cuba, even though it is actually on ice.”
These attempts by the Trump administration to reverse the Obama initiatives have put a stop to the development of the private sector in Cuba and the short-circuiting efforts of American companies that have been trying to build relations based on the Obama effort. he said.
Amid the restrictions, streets in the colonial district of Havana, which used to be flooded with tourists, saw a sharp drop in traffic, which dropped even further during the pandemic. Fuel shortages led to occasional deterioration and worsened transportation. A drop in the hard money for imports has meant empty pharmacy shelves in some places.
But the abysmal economy apparently did not have the leadership of Mr. Díaz-Canel, a loyalist of the Communist Party, who became president in 2018 and whose government continued to suppress political disagreement.
Mr. Díaz-Canel, a low-key figure chosen by his predecessor, Raúl Castro, emphasized the continuity of the Castro era, but also plowed with economic reforms.
On January 1, he united the country’s dual currency system to make the island’s labyrinthine economy more transparent and easier for foreign investors to navigate. Last year, his administration allowed the private sector to import and export directly, which analysts described as a pragmatic response to the economic crisis.
Mr. Díaz-Canel has mostly, at least in public, been silent about the possibility of thawing after Mr. Biden took office. But on November 8, he acknowledged the victory of Mr. Praying with a suggestion of hope, and writing on Twitter: ‘We acknowledge that the American people have chosen a new direction in the presidential election. We believe in the possibility of having a constructive bilateral relationship taking into account our differences. ‘
As mnr. Biden wants to move to the normalization of relations with Cuba, the government of Díaz-Canel will demand that the designation of terrorism be removed as a condition, analysts said.
When Mr. Obama announced during his second term that he would normalize relations with Havana, the Cuban government was determined to be removed from the list.
“The reason it is so sensitive to the Cubans is that they have undergone literally hundreds of terrorist attacks, most of which were launched by Cuban exiles in the United States and trained and organized by the CIA,” said William LeoGrande, professor in the government at the American University in Washington.
Cubans, he says, “therefore take great offense to being branded supporters of terrorists.”
Pompeo sought Cuba’s host of ten Colombian rebel leaders along with a handful of American refugees for crimes committed in the 1970s, and Cuba’s support for Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro.
As the Cuban government boasted on social media and in the Cuban media against the designation of terrorism, some Cubans processed the news with tired frustration.
“The United States is doing this to make things explode here,” said Liber Salvat, 35, a carpenter in downtown Havana who has been out of work since the start of the pandemic and has not been able to get hold of wood.
“It would be better,” he said, “if they helped us.”
Ed Augustin reports from Havana and Kirk Semple from Mexico City.