Democratic candidate Joe Biden desperately needs to correct his message to Miami’s Cuban American voters if he wants to carry this crucial state on the Nov. 3. Some of his top campaign surrogates are beginning to do that — and he should waste no time in following their tune.
Until now, Biden and other former Obama administration officials had steadfastly defended the former president’s 2014 normalization of relations with Cuba. Biden has vowed to lift President Donald Trump’s limits on travel and family remittances to the island, while continuing to defend human rights and pro-democracy activists on the island.
But it’s time for Biden to concede that Obama’s opening to Cuba was not as successful as it seemed when it was announced. Obama had vowed to open up economic ties with the island to help promote a vibrant private sector there while stepping up the pressure on Cuba’s dictatorship to respect basic freedoms. Obama did much of the first, but not enough of the second.
So I was pleasantly surprised when John Kerry, secretary of State under Obama, told me in a Sept. 4 interview that he’s somewhat disappointed with the Cuban regime’s response to Obama’s normalization of ties with Cuba.
Kerry, who is campaigning for Biden and is one of the former vice president’s policy advisers, oversaw the Obama administration’s opening to Cuba six years ago. His admission carries extra weight.
“It’s fair to say that everybody shares a little bit of disappointment about the direction that the government in Cuba chose to go” after the normalization of U.S.-Cuba ties, Kerry told me. He added that, “Cuba seemed to harden down after the initial steps were taken.”
Kerry said that while almost six decades of U.S. trade sanctions on the island failed to bring about democratic changes, and Trump’s recent sanctions should be reversed, a Biden presidency would probably “reinvigorate” America’s human rights policies on Cuba.
“I think the vice president, as president, will very much want to make it clear that human rights is at the forefront of American foreign policy, that Cuba will need to be called out on some of the human rights abuses,” Kerry told me.
Granted, Kerry may have said that in an effort to improve Biden’s support among Cuban Americans. Trump currently holds a 38 percentage point lead among likely Cuban American voters in Miami, according to a Bendixen & Amandi poll released Tuesday by the Miami Herald. A separate NBC poll shows Biden and Trump even in Florida, which makes Cuban American votes a potentially deciding factor in the race’s outcome.
But regardless of whether Kerry’s remarks were part of a campaign strategy or not — for the record, I requested the interview with Kerry through the Biden campaign office — it would be the right policy for a Biden administration to follow.
Let’s face it: Obama’s normalization of ties with Cuba did not help improve the island’s human and civil rights conditions anymore than the previous 60 years of economic sanctions on the island. It’s time for Biden to go beyond defending Obama’s opening to Cuba.
Biden should say that as president he would not only lift some of Trump’s limits on travel and remittances to the island in order to give new oxygen to an incipient private sector on the island, but that he would also simultaneously mount a strong international diplomatic campaign to press Cuba’s dictatorship to respect human rights.
Biden could add that he’s much better positioned than Trump to do that, because he would have much greater support from the international community. Trump, who has embraced and praised the dictators of North Korea, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, has zero moral authority to speak about human rights anywhere. The world would just laugh at a Trump human rights crusade for Cuba.
Biden should start by echoing Kerry’s words and explicitly conceding that he’s disappointed with Cuba’s poor response to Obama’s normalizing ties with the island, and that he would “reinvigorate” U.S. human rights policies toward Cuba. If he does that, he will probably increase his support among many younger Cuban Americans who are rightly disgusted by Trump’s racism, constant incitement of hatred, disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and America’s economic crisis.
Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald; email: aoppenheimer@miamiherald.com.
