Ten years ago this week, Barack Obama announced the historic US rapprochement with Cuba. Alongside Obama during years of secret negotiations was Joe Biden – then Vice President, and a trusted advisor on foreign affairs. But while Obama’s policies reduced Cubans’ reliance on the communist state, President Biden’s actions have done the opposite: spurring extreme hardship and a huge wave of migration to the US.
Time and time again Cuba has had an outsized influence on US elections
After four years of Donald Trump’s hardline stance, Biden entered the White House in 2021 with a pledge to ‘reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families’. But rather than overturn Trump’s stringent measures, Biden added to them. The results were devastating, with Biden’s position on Cuba a humanitarian and electoral disaster. Unsurprisingly, this harmed the Democrats’ chances against Trump in this year’s election.
Although Biden softened some of his predecessor’s decisions, he retained many.
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