Two people walk near a mural with the Cuban flag in Havana, on April 16.YAMIL LAGE / AFP
100 days have passed since Joe Biden's arrival at the White House and nothing has moved between Washington and Havana. Although during the electoral campaign, the current US president rejected the sanctions policy of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and said he would review it, until today not one of the 240 measures adopted by the previous Administration has been lifted. This is what the director general for the United States of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, assures this newspaper, indicating that "there are no signs" that the policy of rapprochement promoted by Barack Obama will be resumed for now, as many expected on and off the island.
Cossío mentions a recent statement by Ben Rhodes, who was Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor and was at the forefront of secret negotiations with Cuba that led to the restoration of relations between the two countries in 2015. “Until now, Biden has been totally indistinguishable from Trump. in politics and messages towards Cuba, ”said Rhodes, without hiding his frustration.
Cossío confirms that "in practice, the current US policy towards Cuba is the one designed by Trump's Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and his former National Security Councilor, John Bolton," a renowned Republican hawk.
"The damage they set out to cause to the economy and well-being of the Cuban people continues to have full effect, and the damage to bilateral relations has not stopped," he says.
Regarding the current state of relations, he considers that "there are formal diplomatic relations and embassies in the respective capitals, but with few personnel and the contacts are for matters of pure diplomatic management, none at a high level."
The "most important and defining element" of the bilateral relationship is, in his opinion, "the economic blockade, which the Trump government strengthened with particular fury since the covid-19 pandemic began and whose consequences impact daily life of Cubans, even today, after Trump left ”.
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Some political scientists and experts recall that the US and Cuba secretly negotiated for more than a year and reached an agreement to release spies before laying the foundations for normalization. For this reason, they say, it cannot be ruled out that although there are no news or apparent changes on the surface, underground contacts are taking place. When asked if there is any type of exchange that indicates a possible rapprochement, Cossío is blunt: “The US Government has not given any sign of a future rapprochement. He has limited himself to saying that a review is underway and that the relationship with Cuba is not a top priority. " It is, he says, “a curious statement, as indicated by President Miguel Díaz-Canel: if Cuba is not a priority, one must ask what explains the consistent cruelty against our country,and the fact that there is an extraterritorial law as comprehensive as Helms-Burton [that allows filing lawsuits against foreign companies that allegedly "traffic" with expropriated properties] that generates conflicts with third countries for the United States, which isolates and discredits its foreign policy every year at the UN ”.
"We wish we were not a priority, that they leave us alone, that they allow us to build our own future and assume the consequences of our own decisions," emphasizes Cossío. "Cuba is not a threat to the United States under any circumstances."
At the moment, Cuba is experiencing one of the worst crises in its history, derived from the inefficiency of its centralized economy and the structural ills that it drags, aggravated by the Covid-19 epidemic and the resurgence of the embargo by Trump. During the VIII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, held recently in Havana, the replacement of Raúl Castro and the historical generation was formalized and it became clear that in order to make the system sustainable, deep-seated economic reforms must be undertaken that will considerably expand the margins of the market and private initiative. How will the US factor weigh on the pace of these changes? Would the beginning of a normalization with Washington favor them?
"The end of the economic blockade would eliminate extraordinary limitations in the effort to update and modernize our economic model," admits Cossío. "It would give us greater flexibility, an opportunity to further decentralize resources and decisions, something very difficult under the effects of an economic war." And he adds: “A better relationship would also allow addressing important bilateral issues, some of them sensitive, such as immigration. The lack of cooperation on this and other issues does not benefit anyone, except a group of politicians who make money from the business of the aggression against Cuba.
As soon as you enter the headquarters of the Chancellery, a large painting of more than three and a half meters welcomes the visitor. It is a collective work in which prominent Cuban artists have participated, such as Eugenio Roca Choco, Alicia Leal, Ernesto Rancaño and Juan Moreira. The work is called Resistance against the blockade, and in the center there is a heart with the Cuban flag and the five-pointed star. For the Cuban government, the economic embargo, or blockade, conditions everything. But would Cuba be willing to take steps to promote rapprochement between the two countries?
Cossío maintains that the current bilateral situation "is the result of hostile US policy, which is absolutely unilateral." No one can "identify a hostile act by Cuba towards the United States, since it is not defending our right to determine what happens in Cuba for those of us who live here," he says, indicating that, despite this, in the past his country has been willing to "respond to the willingness to build a relationship of respect despite differences, to cooperate on issues of common interest and to try to move towards a peaceful relationship that includes dialogue on complex issues that helps solve pending problems."
He also affirms that during this time his government has tried to "develop ties" with various sectors in the United States, including Cuban emigrants.
“Despite the complex history, the hostility of powerful groups within that emigration, we have advanced in the purpose of building bridges and we propose to advance further.
We want an ever closer link ”.
Today, he says, "they are invited to participate in solving the country's economic difficulties and in its development, with investments, for example, something unthinkable years ago."
The difficulties of achieving a good neighborhood
Several members of Barack Obama's team who worked on normalization with Cuba today occupy relevant positions with Joe Biden, such as Alejandro Mayorkas (born in Havana), current Secretary of National Security. The new head of Cuban Affairs at the State Department, Emily Mendrala, previously headed the Council for Democracy in the Americas, a think tank that advocates that the damage done by Trump must be urgently repaired.
But the immobility in these 100 days of the Biden government and the experience of what happened with the Trump Administration, which destroyed the entire Obama legacy and put relations in one of their worst moments since the Cold War, reaffirms Cuba that the US factor cannot be counted on. "For geographical reasons we are obliged to live as neighbors," says Carlos Fernández de Cossío, director general for the United States of the Cuban Foreign Ministry. “History shows that powerful groups have always existed and will exist in the United States, incapable of accepting the full independence of Cuba, and that our determination to defend that right is firm and inalienable. It is a real and complex contradiction that at the end of the Obama administration managed to find some accommodation and demonstrated mutual benefits.It must be assumed that it is possible to achieve a respectful relationship, even recognizing the existence of contradictions. But we must be aware that it may be very difficult to achieve and that it cannot be counted on. We prepare for that eventual scenario ”.
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