ACERE Mourns the Death of Former President Carter, a Champion of U.S.-Cuba Relations
ACERE Insights
US-Cuba Policy Highlights
Issue No. 15 - January 10, 2025
In this newsletter:
- ACERE Policy Insight
On the Nomination of Mauricio Claver-Carone as Trump’s Special Envoy for Latin America
- ACERE Statement
- ACERE Mourns the Death of Former President Carter, a Champion of U.S.-Cuba Relations – Read the ACERE Statement
- US-Cuba Policy News
Ten years ago, a U.S. thaw fueled Cuban dreams. Now hope is lost.
Senators Welch, Wyden, Sanders, Van Hollen and Merkley urge Biden to lift Cuba’s SST designation
Bush, Obama alumni ask Biden administration to ease up on Cuba before Trump takes office
- OFAC fines Minnesota firm over Cuba shipments to Canada
- Former Rep. Susan Wild questions U.S. embargo at Cuba hearing in Congress
- Poll: voters want Biden to continue advancing diplomatic ties with Cuba during his lame-duck session
- How Marco Rubio could raise the stakes for Cuba if he becomes Secretary of State
- US, Cuba sit down to talk migration
Cuban government calls Trump’s deportation plans unrealistic
- News from Cuba
- Cuba frees man who participated in 1997 attacks on hotels in Havana, orchestrated by Cuban exiles
Ten years after normalization with Cuba, Trump hardliners take Cuba back in time
Cuba tourism struggles as blackouts and shortages deter visitors
Cuba stages protest at U.S. embassy over sanctions
Cuba predicts 1% growth after dismal year, economy minister says
- Hit by blackouts, Cuba’s tourism industry now braces for Trump
- Recommended Media
Why are Cuba and the U.S. still mired in the Cold War?
- Ten years after Washington’s historic deal with Havana, Cuba remains adrift
- The Cuban people deserve better. Here’s what President Biden can do
- Marco Rubio is a Cuba critic. Donald Trump is a wildcard.
- Biden’s Legacy on Cuba
There’s never been a more exciting time to visit Cuba
- Tweet of the Month
Former Rep. Barbara Lee urges Cuba policy change from the House floor
ACERE Policy Insight
On the Nomination of Mauricio Claver-Carone as Trump’s Special Envoy for Latin America
On December 22, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Mauricio Claver-Carone to be his Special Envoy for Latin America, a position housed at the State Department that may not require Senate confirmation. Claver-Carone, a Cuban-American lobbyist and lawyer from Florida considered to be the “unofficial liaison on Capitol Hill for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign,” previously served as the President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Senior Director for Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council and Senior Advisor for International Affairs at the Treasury Department, among other roles.
Claver-Carone is well-known for being the architect of Trump’s “maximum pressure” Cuba sanctions from 2018-2020, about which he said at the time that “we have our foot on the accelerator and will be applying new measures every week. [The Cubans] are not going to know what hit them. It will always be a surprise, and when they think they can see light at the end of the tunnel, that light is going to disappear.” Lesser known about Claver-Carone’s resumé is his thirteen years at the helm of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, the 501(c)(3) organization Cuba Democracy Advocates and the blog Capitol Hill Cubans. In this capacity, Claver-Carone was the de-facto leader the pro-embargo lobby in Washington during the Bush and Obama administrations, funneling millions of dollars to legislators on both sides of the aisle to keep the embargo in place and oppose any attempts to modernize Cuba policy. In 2008, he told current National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere Daniel Erikson, then a senior associate at the Inter-American Dialogue, that the PAC, which at the time was the largest, single foreign-policy political committee in the United States, always “keep[s] about $200,000 on hand” just in case any congressperson or senator is tempted to push hard to end the embargo…it’s a very nice way of saying, ‘Hey there’s $200,000 that will go toward commercials against you if you try to do that. So pick another issue.’”
On Cuba policy, Claver-Carone has already told the Miami Herald that the Trump administration will devise further Cuba sanctions so as to have third-party effects, possibly referring to clamping down on oil shipments from Mexico, tourism from Canada and trade and investment from Spain. It’s likely he, together with Secretary of State-nominee Marco Rubio and senior House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), will also seek to codify Cuba’s state sponsor of terrorism designation and target travel to the island by Cuban Americans and the remittances they carry there, as reflected in provisions included in the FY2025 SFOPS and FSGG appropriations bills. From 2018-2020, Claver-Carone penned and oversaw near-weekly sanctions on Cuba targeting trade, travel, remittances, investment and family visits, precipitating a multi-digit economic decline in Cuba and a historic wave of out-migration to the United States.
Ousted as IDB president in 2022 following an investigation finding he created a hostile environment at the bank and maintained improper relations with his chief of staff Jessica Bedoya, Claver-Carone may face challenges if his special envoy position needs to be confirmed by the Senate, which remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that together with Rubio and Trump’s nominees for Ambassador to Spain, Argentina and Panama — all pro-embargo Cuban Americans from Florida — Claver-Carone will act swiftly to engineer new crippling sanctions on Cuba that will be sorely felt by the population and do little – as during the past sixty years – to advance concrete democratic reforms and improvements in human rights on the island.
For more information: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/us/politics/trump-latin-america-envoy.html
US-Cuba Policy News
The views and opinions expressed by authors are their own and articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of ACERE.
Ten years ago, a U.S. thaw fueled Cuban dreams. Now hope is lost: Journalists Frances Robles and Ed Augustin write in the New York Times that the hopes generated by the Obama-era opening to Cuba ten years ago were quickly dashed by President Trump’s rollback of most of its key elements and President Biden’s decision to keep many of those restrictions in place. For the piece, former Obama aide Ben Rhodes, who co-led secret negotiations resulting in the restoration of diplomatic relations, questioned the impacts of the measures Biden has maintained: “what U.S. interests are advanced by trying to turn a country 90 miles from Florida into a failed state with a starving population?” In particular, the authors note that “in his last days in office, Mr. Trump returned Cuba to a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation severely limiting its ability to do business globally and that President Biden kept in place,” about which Cuba’s ambassador to the U.S. during the Obama-era opening, José Ramón Cabañas, told the reporters, “we’re concerned about the deterioration of the population’s standard of living, which is a fact, and it is tangible.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/world/americas/obama-us-thaw-cuba-crisis.html
Senators Welch, Wyden, Sanders, Van Hollen and Merkley urge Biden to lift Cuba’s SST designation: In a letter sent to President Biden, five Democratic senators, including the Ranking Members of the Committees on Finance and on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, urged President Biden to rescind Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, restore Americans’ freedom to travel to Cuba and revoke two State Department lists of restricted Cuban entities and accommodations devised under Trump’s first administration. In the letter, the senators write that Cuba sanctions have achieved none of the United States’ stated policy objectives; contradict the administration’s policy of addressing the root causes of migration; provide an opening for U.S. adversaries; infringe on Americans’ rights and economic interests; and put the U.S. at odds with allies and partners in Latin America and Europe who resent their extraterritorial reach. https://www.welch.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/20241217-Letter-to-President-Biden-re-Cuba-Policy.pdf
Bush, Obama alumni ask Biden administration to ease up on Cuba before Trump takes office: Rafael Bernal writes for The Hill that another letter sent to President Biden penned by a half dozen former national security officials from the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations urged the administration to send humanitarian aid to the island, address private sector overcomplicance with recent OFAC regulations intended to assist private Cuban entrepreneurs and delist Cuba from the state sponsors of terrorism list. Signed by former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, former Chief of Mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana Vicki Huddleston, former interim charges d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana Scott Hamilton and the former Director of the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Jason Blazakis, among others, the letter states that “our closest allies in the region have repeatedly requested we remove this designation to ameliorate the regional impacts of surging Cuban migration, and we are confident the United States will be applauded worldwide for making this fact-based determination.” The top U.S. diplomat during the Obama-era opening to Cuba, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, said for the article, “In my view, the only reason the Trump Administration put Cuba back on the SSOT in its waning days in January 2021 was to make it more difficult for the incoming Biden Administration to reverse Trump Administration reversals of President Obama’s wise and forward-leaning policy.” https://thehill.com/latino/5045016-bush-obama-biden-harris-trump-cuba-rules/
OFAC Fines Minnesota Firm Over Cuba Shipments to Canada: Minnesota-based shipping company CH Robinson was fined $257,000 by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) because, among other violations, a Canadian firm bought by CHR in 2017 continued to provide freight services for six shipments of Cuban goods to Canada between 2018 and 2022. According to OFAC, the penalties for violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, along with other infringements over Iran-related shipments, were lessened from a potential $29 million fine due to CHR’s cooperation with the investigation and swift application of remedial measures. The enforcement action illustrates the extraterritorial nature of Cuba sanctions and their far-reaching impacts on U.S. partners and allies in Canada, the European Union and around the world. https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20241213
Former Rep. Susan Wild questions U.S. embargo at Cuba hearing in Congress: During a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing in December on Cuba’s human rights situation, outgoing Ranking Member Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) said that “our approach to Cuba, which has remained largely constant for six decades now, with the exception of former President Obama’s second term, has not delivered for the Cuban people,” noting that the devastating humanitarian situation on the island has been exacerbated by the U.S. embargo and other related sanctions. Former Rep. Wild also cites a Human Rights Watch report from 2023 that states that the U.S. embargo has done nothing to improve the human rights situation on the island, asserting that U.S. policy deepens the hardship faced by everyday Cubans and that the status quo policy under administrations of both parties has “succeeded only in damaging the image of the United States throughout Latin America and elsewhere around the world.” https://youtu.be/X7-5h0HAN-8?t=3293
Poll: voters want Biden to continue advancing diplomatic ties with Cuba during his lame-duck session: A poll released by Data Progress in mid-December found that a majority of U.S. voters, both Democrat and Republican, would support President Biden moving to improve diplomatic relations with Cuba, lift punitive travel restrictions and facilitate increased internet access on the island during his lame-duck period. The web-poll of 1,225 likely voters from November 20-22, 2024 also found that more Americans preferred allowing U.S. individuals to invest in private Cuban companies and wanted the Biden administration to provide aid to Cuban citizens affected by shortages of fuel and food. The survey also found that an ample majority of Democrats, voters under 45, African-Americans and Latinos support removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/12/11/voters-want-biden-to-continue-advancing-diplomatic-ties-with-cuba-during-his-lame-duck-session
How Marco Rubio could raise the stakes for Cuba if he becomes Secretary of State: CNN Havana Bureau Chief Patrick Oppmann writes that, if confirmed as Secretary of State, Marco Rubio could further tighten the screws on Cuba by devising new economic sanctions, boosting funding for dissidents and “democracy promotion” programs and further restricting U.S. travel to the island. A U.S. diplomat who did not want to be quoted by name told Oppmann that, during the first Trump administration, “Rubio called the shots on Cuba. We were told: ‘whatever he wants, he gets. Just keep him happy.’” Further sanctioning Cuba could backfire, though, according to Ricardo Herrero of the Cuba Study Group, who told Oppmann that, “There are no plans that I’m aware of for what to do with a failed state 90 miles off US shores, which is what Cuba appears to be approaching or at least seems to be much closer to becoming — a failed state — than a Jeffersonian democracy.” https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/08/americas/cuba-marco-rubio-secretary-of-state-analysis/index.html
U.S., Cuba sit down in Havana to talk migration: The U.S. and Cuba sustained regular migration talks in Havana in early December, led by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Eric Jacobstein, and Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío. The talks, resumed in 2022 after a four year hiatus during Trump’s first term, take place twice a year and occur under the framework of comprehensive migration accords signed by the U.S. and Cuba in 1994-95. The Cuban delegation emphasized the impact of “maximum pressure” U.S. sanctions, as well as the preferential treatment granted to Cuban migrants, in catalyzing and incentivizing historic out-migration from the island, principally to the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. delegation emphasized key national interests such as facilitating family reunification, discouraging irregular migration and improving respect for human rights. https://cu.usembassy.gov/u-s-cuba-bi-annual-migration-talks-held-in-havana-cuba/
Cuban government calls Trump’s deportation plans unrealistic: After the U.S.-Cuba migration dialogues took place in December, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío said that discussion of President-elect Trump’s promised mass deportations, including of Cubans, was not raised, but clarified that Cuba found the idea to be “unrealistic.” More than 800,000 Cubans have come to the United States under the Biden administration through a mix of legal and irregular means, yet since Cuba resumed accepting U.S. repatriation flights in 2022, only around one thousand Cubans have been returned to the island. The Trump administration has vowed to eliminate a number of Biden administration immigration programs that have benefitted Cuban nationals, including a humanitarian parole program initiated two years ago through which some 110,000 Cubans are legally living and working in the U.S. “Attempting to deport thousands of Cubans to Cuba would mean uprooting people who have established a life in the U.S.,” Cossío said. https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/cuban-government-calls-trumps-deportation-plans-unrealistic/3487847/?amp=1
News from Cuba
The views and opinions expressed by authors are their own and articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of ACERE.
Cuba frees man who participated in 1997 attacks on hotels in Havana, orchestrated by Cuban exiles: Associated Press Havana Bureau Chief Andrea Rodríguez writes that Cuba released from prison a Salvadoran man convicted for carrying out a series of hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 orchestrated by extremists in the Cuban exile community. Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon served a nearly 30-year sentence in Cuban jails, but the intellectual author of the bombings, connoted Cuban-American terrorist Luis Posada Carrilles, lived and died in Miami a free man without ever facing charges in the U.S. for the attacks, which he told the New York Times in 1998 were intended to dissuade tourists from visiting Cuba. Cuban authorities continue to highlight the perceived hypocrisy of designating Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism when it has over the years been a victim of terrorist attacks planned and financed from the U.S., such as the one Cruz Leon carried out. https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/cuba-frees-man-who-participated-in-1997-attacks-on-hotels-in-havana/
Ten years after normalization with Cuba, Trump hardliners take Cuba back in time: Havana-based reporter Ed Augustin writes for DropSite News that ten years after Obama’s Cuba normalization, the Trump team plans to further ratchet up pressure on Havana. Seeking to explain why the Biden administration’s Cuba policy ended up resembling Trump’s more so than Obama’s, Augustin writes that, according to three Obama officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, Biden’s top State Department brass knew Trump’s Cuba policy was a foreign policy failure, but Democrats’ poor electoral result in 2020 in South Florida led the White House to prevent the State Department from acting. Likewise, Augustin cites former CIA analyst Fulton Armstrong, who argues that covert, taxpayer-funded programs intended to promote democracy in Cuba are instead used to maintain sanctions in D.C. “Washington is awash in information about Cuba that itself has directed. The firewall between covert operations and policy is gone. This industry [has been] crucial in keeping the Biden people in the pocket of the anti-normalization crowd,” Armstrong said. https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/ten-years-after-normalization-with
Cuba tourism struggles as blackouts and shortages deter visitors: Havana-based Reuters journalist Dave Sherwood writes that tourism to Cuba is suffering amid frequent blackouts and shortages of food, fuel and labor. For these reasons, among others, he notes, the governments of Canada and Germany recently issued travel warnings for its citizens visiting Cuba. Cuba’s tourism minister also reported that the total number of tourists who visited the island in 2024 clocked in at 2.2 million, well short of the 3.2 million target. Some tour agencies, including in Canada, are steering travelers away from Cuba, given the ongoing difficulties and concerns over blackouts, and German airline Condor said it will halt flights to Cuba in May given the limited demand. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-tourism-struggles-blackouts-shortages-deter-visitors-2024-12-19/
Cuba stages protest at U.S. embassy over sanctions: Havana-based Reuters journalists Nelson Acosta and Marc Frank write that tens of thousands of Cubans, led by former president Raúl Castro and current president Miguel Díaz-Canel, protested U.S. sanctions in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana in late December. The authors note that “the march was the first in more than a decade organized in front of the US diplomatic headquarters to protest the country’s Cuba policy, signaling a more confrontational posture by the Caribbean island nation as it prepares for Trump.” According to 40-year-old Rosalina Rodríguez, who attended the march, “the only thing that Cuba needs economically to get up and move forward again is for sanctions to be lifted.” https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-stages-protest-us-embassy-over-sanctions-2024-12-20/
Cuba predicts 1% growth after dismal year, economy minister says: Cuba’s economy minister predicted a mere 1% growth rate for 2025 following a dismal year for the island’s fluttering economy that independent experts say may have contracted up to the 4% in 2024. The government has not officially reported the 2024 economic growth rate, but has hinted that the economy has again shrunk following a 1.9% contraction in 2023. Despite a 2% growth projection for 2024, hours-long blackouts across the country “have created a critical situation where industry is paralyzed,” according to Cuban economist Omar Everleny. The authors note that official statistics show that freight traffic was down 18% in September, compared to the previous year, while export earnings were $900 million (or 10%) short of the target and imports were similarly down by 18%. The authors point to U.S. sanctions and the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic for the depression that has left large swaths of the population facing double-digit inflation and shortages of basic goods, water and fuel. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-predicts-1-growth-2025-after-dismal-year-economy-minister-says-2024-12-16/
Hit by blackouts, Cuba’s tourism industry now braces for Trump: BBC correspondent Will Grant similarly writes that tourism to Cuba during high-season has been hampered over fears of blackouts, widespread shortages of basic supplies and expectations of worsening conditions stemming from the personnel announcements made by the incoming administration. Grant writes that Cubans expect the Trump administration to further tighten U.S. travel to the island and shutter operations at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, further reducing already-low tourism figures to Cuba. According to former Cuban diplomat Jesus Arboleya, “Donald Trump has handed US policy towards Cuba to those sectors of the Cuban-American right who have essentially lived off anti-Castro policies since their origins,” implicitly referencing Secretary of State-nominee Marco Rubio and Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone. Under Trump’s first administration, U.S. cruise ships were banned from docking in Cuba, airlines were barred from traveling to destinations outside of Havana, people-to-people travel was eliminated and U.S. taxpayer funds were spent on campaigns to encourage citizens of the U.S. and other countries to avoid traveling to Cuba. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly7ndxjzv2o
Recommended Media
The views and opinions expressed by authors are their own and articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of ACERE.
Why Are Cuba and the U.S. Still Mired in the Cold War?: William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh narrate in Foreign Policy how “a dramatic foreign-policy initiative—one as momentous as U.S. President Richard Nixon’s opening to China and broadly supported by the American people and U.S. allies around the world—failed to establish what President Barack Obama called ‘a new chapter’ in the tormented history of U.S.-Cuba relations.” In the context of the tenth anniversary of the announcement to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, the authors argue that “the key lesson from the fleeting rapprochement that began 10 years ago on Dec. 17, 2014, is that engagement benefits both countries and that bold and determined leaders can make it happen.” They close by cautioning against increased sanctions on Cuba by the incoming Trump administration, which could complicate Trump’s desire to improve relations with Russia, his promise to end irregular migration, cross-border cooperation with Mexico and attempts to stabilize conditions in the Caribbean. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/12/12/cuba-us-cold-war-normalization-economy-sanctions/
Ten years after Washington’s historic deal with Havana, Cuba remains adrift: Speaking to why President Biden has kept much of Trump’s Cuba policy in place, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes tells journalist Marco Werman in a radio interview for The World: “I think Joe Biden, just frankly, did not have the political courage to take on a couple of well-placed senators who are hardliners on Cuba, including Sen. Bob Menendez, who was the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee at the beginning of the Biden administration [and has] now been prosecuted for corruption.” Regarding Cuba’s continuing presence on the state sponsors of terrorism list, Rhodes says that it “is the most punishing sanction because that essentially treats anybody that does business in Cuba as if they’re supporting terrorism. It’s had a huge impact on the Cuban people. The Biden administration knows that the process by which Trump put Cuba back on the list was not the normal process. It was wrong and there’s no substantive reason for it to be there.” In the interview, Obama’s top Latin America aide at the National Security Council, Ricardo Zúñiga, agrees with Rhodes that the only way for Obama’s Cuba policy to have endured would have been to legislate it, given how easily executive actions can be reversed, asserting that “in the case of Cuba, with so many accumulated sanctions and policy decisions, it would take acts of Congress to really, truly reverse the relationship.” https://theworld.org/stories/2024/12/18/ten-years-after-washingtons-historic-deal-with-havana-cuba-remains-adrift
The Cuban people deserve better. Here’s what President Biden can do: On the tenth anniversary of the joint U.S.-Cuba announcement to restore diplomatic relation, former Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and political prisoner in Cuba Alan Gross write in The Hill that “President Biden should immediately remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which at this point has no factual or legal basis and depreciates the credibility of the list; and restore the right of Americans to travel freely to Cuba, as they can to every other country except North Korea.” They affirm that “if anyone should be a bitter, fervent supporter of punitive sanctions, it’s Alan, who languished in a Cuban prison for acts that would not be a crime in most countries. But he firmly supports positive engagement with Cuba.” In the op-ed, Leahy and Gross argue that “there is simply no justifiable or practical reason to continue a failed policy of sanctions against a country whose government poses no threat to us, and whose leaders have long profited politically by blaming our sanctions to deflect domestic criticism of their own repressive and bankrupt policies.” https://thehill.com/opinion/5043822-cuba-engagement-policy-review/
Marco Rubio is a Cuba critic. Donald Trump is a wildcard: Appalachian State University professor Joseph Gonzalez argues in The Conversation that despite Secretary of State-nominee Marco Rubio’s hardline stance toward Cuba, President-elect Trump may seek to cement his legacy as a rule-breaking dealmaker, advance his own personal interests on the island and cater to the stated preferences of his South Florida base. Gonzalez notes that a majority of Cuban-American Trump voters want to be able to continue to send money to the island, visit their family in Cuba and benefit from the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program – areas, he argues, Trump may not touch. Gonzalez also notes that Trump officials not only visited Cuba in 2012-13 to scout locations for golf courses, hotels and casinos (as well as register trademarks on the island), but that Trump’s envy of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and admiration of close Cuba allies Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un could lead him to broker a deal to end the embargo in exchange for compensations for properties nationalized after the Cuban revolution. Gonzales maintains that since Trump will never again run for president, he could be less inclined to appeal to Cuban-American hardliners and work to secure a legacy for himself abroad, including possibly achieving a “better deal” with Cuba. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-16/could-trump-and-marco-rubio-turn-the-page-on-u-s-cuba-relations
Biden’s Legacy on Cuba: Cuba expert Peter Kornbluh writes in The Nation that “in the waning days of his troubled tenure, [Biden’s] presidential legacy could also include reminding the world that Washington is capable of a sensible, productive and normal policy toward Cuba.” Kornbluh argues that Obama’s posture of engagement toward Cuba ten years ago “proved so successful that an inter-agency national security review conducted during the first months of the Trump administration concluded that the policy should be sustained.” He also questions why Biden has decided to keep Cuba listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, “as US officials quietly acknowledge that Cuba does not belong on the list.” He opens and concludes the piece by referencing a Congressional letter sent by senior House Democrats in November urging immediate action on the state-sponsor designation, humanitarian aid, sanctions relief and energy sector cooperation in the final weeks of his administration. https://www.thenation.com/article/world/biden-legacy-cuba-opening/
There’s never been a more exciting time to visit Cuba: Travel writer Lydia Bell reports for Conde Nast Traveler that Cuba “may be facing tough times, but its hoteliers, creators and artists are forging a hopeful and beautiful path forward.” Bell travels to Havana, Trinidad and Viñales where she meets the private Cuban entrepreneurs, restauranteurs and musicians struggling to eek out a living on the island amid recurring blackouts, perennial shortages and dwindling tourism. In this context, she notes that “in 2021, the US put Cuba on the terror list; Americans must seek a special license to visit the island nation unless they meet one of 12 categories of authorized travel; [and] tourism subsequently fell by more than half.” Yet at the same time, Bell notes that Cuba’s private sector is now importing, exporting and receiving foreign investment, constituting a “supply-chain revolution” and facilitating access to high-quality provisions. Bell explains that U.S. travelers can still legally visit the island to patron and support Cuba’s independent businesses and gives recommendations of where to stay, eat and shop. https://www.cntraveler.com/story/theres-never-been-a-more-exciting-time-to-visit-cuba
Tweet of the Month
Former Rep. Barbara Lee urges Cuba policy change from the House floor: After returning from a brief trip to Cuba in mid-December, outgoing Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) took to the House Floor to submit for the record a letter signed by over 100 non-governmental, civil society organizations in Cuba to President Biden urging him to remove the island from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. During her remarks, Rep. Lee said that “there is absolutely no evidence” that Cuba is a terrorist state and noted there are “many U.S. government specialized agencies who attach great value to their professional cooperation with Cuba in the fight against the scourge of terrorism.” The former Congresswoman, who has defended mutually beneficial relations with Cuba for four decades, also took the opportunity to discuss the potential for collaboration between the U.S. and Cuba in biotechnology and medical research, particularly on diabetic foot ulcers and innovative cancer treatments. https://x.com/bellybeastcuba/status/1869821927625502928
