Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks looking at the camera during the second and final debate.
(Credit: AP / Julio Cortez)
Editor's Note:
Jorge Dávila Miguel has a degree in Journalism since 1973 and has maintained a continuous career in his profession to date.
He has postgraduate degrees in Social Information Sciences and Social Media, as well as post-university higher studies in International Relations, Political Economy and Latin American History.
Currently, Dávila Miguel is a columnist for El Nuevo Herald, on the McClatchy network, and a political analyst and columnist for CNN en Español.
The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author.
See more at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) -
Washington's policy towards Cuba, like many others of President Donald Trump, would not continue in force if the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden were elected.
The question is: when, how and, above all, to what extent would Barack Obama's commitment to Havana be reestablished with Biden?
Trump's practice has been to defuse many of Obama's policies.
It is foreseeable that Biden, having belonged to that administration, will restore them or, better still, reinvent them.
Biden sailed under Obama's sails, but he will also have to set his own course as president of the world's leading power.
That could be the case with Cuba policy.
Biden told CBS 4 News in April, when he mentioned an interesting detail for those of us who closely follow the always complex state of relations between Cuba and the United States.
"Yes, I would restore it - referring to Obama's compromise policy.
In large part, he would return to her.
I would insist that they keep the commitments that they said they would create when we actually set the policy, ”Biden said.
The indication of “unfulfilled commitments” by Cuba is relevant because that country, alluding to its sovereignty and the spirit of equality in those negotiations, never admitted giving something to Washington, or that it was going to do so, in exchange for US concessions. in the thawing process.
And the question remains: Were there any broken commitments or promises, or is it one of Biden's inaccuracies?
In any case, there we find the Gordian knot of the possible reestablishment of diplomatic and commercial relations between the two countries.
How much should Havana offer in the negotiations, if at all, and how much is Washington willing to grant and in exchange for what?
The unique history of these relationships must be mentioned.
Even before Cuba's independence from Spain, the United States had a desire for political and territorial dominance over the island.
A good precedent is the letter from Thomas Jefferson about Cuba being one more state of the Union.
That is why the nationalist sentiment on the island towards the United States is perfectly understandable, not born of Fidel Castro's revolution but inspired by it.
Hence the legitimate position of Cuba in the face of interference in its sovereignty.
All internal matters must be resolved within the Cuban nation and by Cubans.
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However, it is difficult to imagine how the current citizen rights and electoral regulations, endorsed in the recent Constitution of 2019, would make it easier for Cubans to have adequate mechanisms to sovereignly resolve their affairs.
Said constitution recognizes freedom of expression, of the press and of assembly (pending legislation to regulate it).
But the democratic spirit of the constitutional letter remains imprisoned in the letter.
The crucial dilemma of the Cuban socio-political and economic reality is that the relationship between individuals and the State is dysfunctional.
Citizen rights pale before the rights of the State.
A central part of Biden's policy towards Cuba will very possibly be marked by human rights.
But the extreme politicization of these rights has been a constant in Washington's behavior toward Cuba.
Biden and the Cuban state will have to walk a fine line if in the end they wish to restore a just and fluid relationship.
The aggressive American stance during the last 60 years, with the exception of the Obama era, and the political exaltation of Donald Trump have not solved a problem that to conclude implies that both parties accept moral imperatives.
The Cuban government needs to resolve its so-called Cuba-United States dispute as soon as possible.
A new "thaw" (an image that is always picturesque in a Caribbean setting) would immediately benefit Cuba, whose objective is the lifting of the commercial and financial embargo.
The productive and commercial capacities of the socialist island - in addition to its huge economic errors - are broken by said embargo and Cuba, as a nation, has the right to want to remain sovereign.
As much as its people have the right to aspire to popular sovereignty.
With Obama, some jealous Cuban nationalists complained that the United States' objective of dominating the island had not changed, with the difference that Obama "wanted to enter them through the kitchen."
Nobody, obviously, wants to be sent home.
So, if you want to get along with your neighbor, be sovereign and avoid temptations, the best thing is that yes, they fix the kitchen only among Cubans.
They will undoubtedly be the first to be very happy.
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