{"id":594397,"date":"2023-10-15T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-15T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/cuba-seeks-to-thaw-biden-administrations-cold-shoulder\/"},"modified":"2023-10-15T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-15T18:00:00","slug":"cuba-seeks-to-thaw-biden-administrations-cold-shoulder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/cuba-seeks-to-thaw-biden-administrations-cold-shoulder\/","title":{"rendered":"#Cuba seeks to thaw Biden administration\u2019s cold shoulder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/10\/tabladajohana_rb.jpg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Cuban officials are megaphoning their intent to open wide-ranging negotiations with the Biden administration amid persistent economic pain and growing emigration from the island.<\/p>\n<p>The public relations offensive is a new tack for the communist government, frustrated with a stagnated bilateral relationship.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWe are open and willing for more cooperation. We want to turn this relation into a relation not of aggression, but to a relation of respect, respect, cooperation. And also I don\u2019t think it\u2019s too much to ask the U.S. what they ask of every country: The United States will not even dream and Americans will not ever dream of another country intervening in their domestic affairs,\u201d said Johana Tablada, the Cuban foreign ministry\u2019s top official in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General<\/a> Division for the United States.<\/p>\n<p>In a wide-ranging interview with The Hill at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, Tablada laid out the official Cuban perspective on U.S. attitudes toward the island and why their <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>eals for formal talks have been met with deaf ears.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe always say, \u2018OK, let\u2019s talk about it seriously. Let\u2019s put everything on the table with no exception.\u2019 But it is very clear that the limit \u2014 in our opinion \u2014 is political will and electoral politics,\u201d said Tablada.<\/p>\n<p>Cuba\u2019s top priority is no secret: For the past three years, the island\u2019s officials have publicly urged the Biden administration to remove the country from the State Department\u2019s list of state sponsors of terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>Cuba was included in the list in the waning days of the Trump administration, raising the bureaucratic and political barriers the Biden administration would have to overcome to return to the Obama administration\u2019s policy of rapprochement.<\/p>\n<p>So far, the Biden administration has shown no willingness to open that political can of worms.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>But Cuban officials say inclusion on the list also bears political costs for the administration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt triggered, im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>tely, a disproportional flow of migrants to the U.S.,\u201d said Tablada.<\/p>\n<p>She said including Cuba on the list also hurt the country\u2019s social services network and is \u201ca discredit to the commitment of the United States to fight terrorism,\u201d given existing cooperation between Washington and Havana on law enforcement and terrorism.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>The Hill has reached out to the Biden administration for comment.<\/p>\n<p>While the Trump administration\u2019s Cuba policy was intended to reverse the Obama administration\u2019s rapprochement, it only pulled the trigger on the terrorism list 10 days before President Biden took office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe inclusion of Cuba \u2014 fraudulent \u2014 in the terrorist list failed in its main object because the logic was the logic of [former Trump adviser] Mauricio Claver-Carone that the blockade is not working because it\u2019s not perfect,\u201d said Tablada.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cSo if you twisted and twisted enough to make the economic siege and financial siege perfect, the Cuban economy will collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Cuban economy took a hit \u2014 on top of preexisting economic troubles \u2014 especially as foreign banks withdrew from the island rather than risk U.S. sanctions. The economic collapse did play a part in triggering massive protests on July 11, 2021, which Cuban officials say were allowed to take place, though international observers such\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/latest\/news\/2022\/07\/five-things-you-should-know-cubas-11-july-protests\/\">Amnesty International<\/a>\u00a0say \u201cauthorities responded with repression and criminalization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The degree of repression and the nature of the protests \u2014 economic, political, or both \u2014 are debated, but the aftermath of economic collapse is not.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cSo they failed in toppling down the Cuban government, but they were very successful and effective in harming the Cuban population. Results: More than 200,000 people emigrated from Cuba in just one year,\u201d said Tablada.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another factor in increased emigration from Cuba was the country\u2019s reform two decades ago to liberalize who could get a passport in the country, essentially dropping Cold War-era restrictions on Cubans leaving the island.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince the 1960s the migratory issue has been highly politicized, so I think that the change occurred 20 years ago, precisely as a sign of maturity \u2014 because it was the right thing to do,\u201d said Tablada.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr6_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cAnd also because I think it was a sign of the many things that we\u2019ve been changing in Cuba for the last 20 years as part of our national debate,\u201d she added, pointing to other popular reforms on the island, including the 2022 referendum to legalize gay marriage.<\/p>\n<p>But Cuba\u2019s system of government has been, since 1959, a barrier for U.S. presidents \u2014 with the exception of former President Obama \u2014 to directly negotiate with the island.<\/p>\n<p>That notion frustrates Cuban officials, who note the United States carries on formal political and trade relations with other Marxist-Leninist one-party states and former Cold War rivals like Vietnam, and even with current U.S. rivals.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr7_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cChina. Because the U.S. has a better relationship with China than with Cuba. Honestly,\u201d said Tablada.<\/p>\n<p>And from the Cuban perspective, a one-party state willing to discuss human rights, prisoners, migration and trade but not regime change would make a more suitable partner to the United States than other countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The] U.S. has political, diplomatic, economic relations with countries that are far, far, far away in their standards of human rights [than] where Cuba is right now. And I don\u2019t want to mention any names, because we probably also have good relations with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you can easily realize that that\u2019s not the real object. If the real object of the United States toward Cuba priority would be human rights, the blockade would be removed because it\u2019s hurting us too badly,\u201d added Tablada.<\/p>\n<p>Though Cuban officials meet with their U.S. counterparts on a number of issues ranging from patrolling the Straits of Florida to the environment, those meetings are restricted to specific topics<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we have is just the [tip of the] iceberg of multilateral cooperation. This week, I visited different entities of the U.S. government or Justice Department. And I\u2019ve met with other departments \u2014 I won\u2019t mention which ones because I don\u2019t want them to be subpoenaed to Congress,\u201d said Tablada.<\/p>\n<p>She said that light touch, added to the historical distrust between the two governments, amounts to a dysfunctional relationship between close neighbors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cU.S.-Cuba relations are completely out of control, [they] are completely far away from the national interest of the two people and as as a signal today of distinction, a huge flow of migrants and a state of denial of the United States government that does not like to accept that there is a direct link between this,\u201d said Tablada.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not talking about the 60 years of the embargo. I\u2019m talking of the brand new 200-and-something unilateral, coercive measures during Trump and Biden that trigger the highest emigration away from Cuba to the U.S., which is painful for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. 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The public relations offensive is a new tack for the communist government, frustrated with a stagnated bilateral relationship. \u201cWe are open and willing for more cooperation. We want to turn this&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":594398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/10\/tabladajohana_rb.jpg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[134343,90482,124783,991,34149,125973,70289],"class_list":["post-594397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-campaign","tag-house","tag-international","tag-joe-biden","tag-latino","tag-obama","tag-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}