Biden Admin Maintains Trump-era Hardline Approach to Cuban Regime

[Frodo]

The more things change....

White House sticks with hardline approach to Cuba
The administration announced new sanctions on the Cuban regime as the Homeland Security secretary met with Cuban Americans in Miami.

President Biden clearly has every intention of at least trying to win Florida in 2024.

[GP270watch]

Obama won Florida twice!

[Bootes Void]

What is the endgame with the sanctions. It's been 50 years, something has to change or even question if this even works

[Never Made it to Graceland]

You aren't going to win Hialeah, my guy. Do what's best for both countries instead of continuing this inane bullsh**t.

[Horus]

Very pointless. It's time to end this silly grudge, especially now that the Castros are gone.

[Storebought]

According to this Miami Herald poll, Cuban exiles' positions have grown harsher and more retributive since 2016, and I haven't found a poll that says non-Cuban Americans place a high priority on normalized relations, so this is an expected outcome.

[Joe Republic]

This probably isn't the best week to be announcing controversial, unwise foreign policy decisions.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

This probably isn't the best week to be announcing controversial, unwise foreign policy decisions.

Biden chose Rahm Emanuel to be the ambassador to Japan rather than Cuba, so Cuba got off easy here.

[darklordoftech]

According to this Miami Herald poll, Cuban exiles' positions have grown harsher and more retributive since 2016

What has happened since 2016?

[Storebought]

Michael Bustamante, an assistant professor of history at FIU, said he thinks the poll’s results point to the effectiveness of Trump’s messaging in South Florida’s Cuban community for four years, as the new administration weighs its approach to the island.

“What I see still is sort of the hangover, if you will, of four-plus years of the Trump administration hammering home its policies in this community,” Bustamante said.

Last week, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said during a press briefing while the president is evaluating Trump’s policies, a “Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities.” Advancing human rights, Psaki added, would be the administration’s core principle in its approach.

Biden doesn't have the charisma or influence of Trump or Obama to change their minds one way or the other, and the Cuba issue only concerns voters who detest Cuba anyhow.

[WMS]

It would be nice to finally remove the fig leaf the Cuban government uses to deflect criticism from all the horrible things they’ve done and do, but I guess the U.S. government is incapable of thinking beyond the next election in any regard.

[Hope For A New Era]

stop. please just stop. concede florida already. put all the resources into texas and north carolina and have a position on cuba that is driven by reason and not politics please thanks

[Person Man]

I’m not sure what this accomplishes. This is meaningless unless we try to do something about the Cuban regime.

[Orwell]

Let's invade Cuba! War! War! War!

[7,052,770]

This probably isn't the best week to be announcing controversial, unwise foreign policy decisions.

Maybe it is. Sneak all the bad stuff in there while the media is still hand-wringing over Afghanistan before they forget about it next month.

[Frodo]

This probably isn't the best week to be announcing controversial, unwise foreign policy decisions.

Maybe it is. Sneak all the bad stuff in there while the media is still hand-wringing over Afghanistan before they forget about it next month.

Bingo -remember, this story is at least two days old.  Amid all the hubbub over Afghanistan, this development slipped past everyone's radar.  

[PSOL]

The CPC will outlast the United States, stay mad.

[Joe Republic]

The CPC will outlast the United States, stay mad.

Not sure about that.  But Cuba will surely factor into the USA's terminal decline in some way.  I wouldn't be shocked if a near-future Republican president launched a new invasion and attempted regime change for "freedom" and "liberty", in order to distract Americans from his own administration's further removal of civil liberties and democratic norms.

[Senator Spark]

This is likely Biden attempting to position himself to win Florida.

[WMS]

The CPC will outlast the United States, stay mad.

Keep proving that Salon article wrong

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The CPC will outlast the United States, stay mad.

Imagine actually believing this

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

What is the endgame with the sanctions. It's been 50 years, something has to change or even question if this even works

Yeah. Same with Russia. Biden should end Trump-era hardline approach against Russia!

[Dan the Roman]

So whats missed here is that Cuba does not want the sanctions dropped. There is some weird myth Cuba is a "Communist" regime which is really a left-nationalist. It isn't. It is much more ideological than Eastern Europe or Vietnam. Ie. all those places had government institutions, fake elections, fake parties. Cuba did not bother setting up a fake National Assembly until 1976 and that was under Soviet pressure.

Ben Rhodes believed the sort of Liberal Arts IR 101 line being pushed here but Cuban Communism has much more in common with North Korean than with "mainstream". It is about exporting.

Carter offered an end to sanctions and normalization. The terms were Cuba abide by the basic principles of international law. Not launching armed attacks on other countries. Cuba refused. Cuba is not willing to accept the principles of the international system, any sorts of law or rules. You cannot normalize relations with a rogue state.

Now whether sanctions have an end game is a different matter. But it has become breathtakingly clear over the last five years that engagement is futile and that is why not just Republicans but most Democrats who worked on the issue have abandoned the policy.

Maybe there is some Machiavellian case for lifting sanctions and using that to undermine the regime. But the conviction is pretty universal in policy circles that engagement is a dead end.

Also this extends to the left-wing Pro-Havana constituency. In the middle part of this decade Cuba ran a constitutional reform consultation. They held local meetings, invited foreigners and the overwhelming demands were for direct elections.  This was widely covered in glowing manner in left-wing circles. Then what did the CPC do? They made a constitution that not only did not allow for the election of the president but did not allow election for the national assembly. MPs are to be elected not be voters but by electoral colleges. It was made obvious that no one in the CPC cares about what the Cuban people want, what their foreign friends think, or anything other than what they feel like doing.

[WMS]

What is the endgame with the sanctions. It's been 50 years, something has to change or even question if this even works

Yeah. Same with Russia. Biden should end Trump-era hardline approach against Russia!

Russia wasn’t supporting the Taliban, eh?

https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-kabul-seems-safer-under-taliban-than-it-was-under-ghani-2021-08-16/

“Speaking to Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio station, Zhirnov said he had been impressed by the Taliban's conduct so far, describing their approach as ‘good, positive and business-like.’”
“The Taliban had promised, in line with earlier agreements, to protect Russian diplomats, he said”
“ Zamir Kabulov, President Vladimir Putin's special representative on Afghanistan, said on Monday that Moscow's long campaign to build ties with the Taliban appeared now to be paying off.
"It's not for nothing that we've been establishing contacts with the Taliban movement for the last seven years," Kabulov told Ekho Moskvy.”

How about no?

[KaiserDave]

Idiotic