The announcement by the US State Department – less than a week before leaving office — that it’s lifting the designation of Cuba as a ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’, while welcome, would have been even much better news four years ago.
Coming just six days before Biden and the Democrats demit office, this surprise decision, while diplomatically welcomed by Havana, is simply a case of too little, too late.
However, it’s also the latest example of how the two parties dominating politics in the USA are simply bent on forever playing deadly games with the lives of Cuba’s 11 million citizens.
Since taking office in January 2021, President Biden steadfastly rejected all requests by Havana to reverse the decision taken by the Trump administration but has now done it with the snap of a finger.
But the decision sounds more like another round of the never-ending low-grade, high-risk Democrat-Republican political card game over Havana, in which the two parties try to outdo each other on which can best do the worst to Cuba without declaring war.
Both parties, in office, make the Cuban economy scream, but the Biden administration is obviously trying to tie the hands of the incoming Trump administration.
The announcement was sure to anger and evoke a possibly adverse reaction from incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a hard-line former Florida representative of Cuban descent who’s made no bones about just how hard he’d like to squeeze neighbouring Cuba.
The thing is, though, despite the lifting of the undeserving terrorist-related designation, the US is still maintaining the equally harmful and longer-lasting 63-year-old embargo, with its component economic blockade and related sanctions that prevent Havana from doing business in US currency and punish any company or individual seeking to invest there.
Thanks to the 63-year-old embargo, Cuba still cannot import the fuel it needs for its dying electricity plants, medicines for its sick, or parts for medical equipment at hospitals.
Besides, any cargo ship heading to Cuban ports from friendly nations attracts military attention from the US Southern Command’s marine forces, including being tracked.
I would be the first to raise my hand if I felt Washington’s Tuesday announcement would change the price of cocoa or coffee for Cubans, or sugar the nation’s bitter life experiences.
But, like with the loud and repeated media promises of ‘a ceasefire’ in Gaza on the eve of President Biden’s departure from and President Trump’s arrival at the Blue Room of the Oval Office, I’m finding it difficult to fathom why the outgoing President would suddenly want to do for Cuba today, what he’s absolutely refused to throughout the past four years.
Biden has just shown he can also lift the deadly embargo with the snap of a finger.
But, like everyone who understands the dynamics of US-Cuba ties since Fidel Castro declared Havana’s intent to build ‘Socialism’ in 1962, I’m hoping for the best today, but won’t be surprised if it turns out worse for Cuba tomorrow…