Cuba has big stake in US election after Trump's trashing of detente
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Friday
February 03, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 03, 2023
Cuba has big stake in US election after Trump's trashing of detente

Politics

Reuters
01 November, 2020, 06:40 pm
Last modified: 01 November, 2020, 06:42 pm

Related News

  • Bangladesh's Nur Khan among winners of US's Global Human Rights Defender Award
  • Biden says no F-16s for Ukraine as Russia claims gains
  • US House Republican to pursue safeguards on classified documents
  • IMF lifts 2023 growth forecast on China reopening, strength in US, Europe
  • North Korea calls US pledge of tanks to Ukraine 'unethical crime'

Cuba has big stake in US election after Trump's trashing of detente

Trump unraveled a detente with Cuba started by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, that had fostered remittances and travel to the Caribbean isle, as well as foreign investment and the private sector

Reuters
01 November, 2020, 06:40 pm
Last modified: 01 November, 2020, 06:42 pm
A vintage car passes by the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, October 30, 2020. Picture taken October 30, 2020. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini
A vintage car passes by the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, October 30, 2020. Picture taken October 30, 2020. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

Pensioner Esperanza Chacón, 89, prays every day for Donald Trump to lose the US presidential election. Like many Cubans, her livelihood has been threatened by Trump's tightening of the US trade embargo on the Communist-run island.

Chacon's son in Miami sends her the equivalent of $60 to $100 a month, to supplement her state pension worth just $12. But the Trump administration's latest Cuba sanction, unveiled last month, looks set to cut off remittances.

"He's ending my ability to live and feed myself, at this age!" said Chacon. "So I'm praying every day he doesn't win the elections."

Cuba has more at stake in the upcoming US election than most countries in Latin America as the Trump administration has focused much of its foreign policy in the region on measures aimed, it says, at bringing about democracy in the country and its socialist ally Venezuela.

Trump unraveled a detente with Cuba started by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, that had fostered remittances and travel to the Caribbean isle, as well as foreign investment and the private sector.

The Republican president reverted instead to a decades-old US policy of choking the one-party state's already inefficient state-run economy to force reform.

Democratic challenger Joe Biden - the vice president during Obama's attempts to engage with Cuba - has promised to promptly reverse Trump policies that "have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights."

"The US election results are enormously important for Cuba because they will make the difference between continuing Trump's policy of trying to starve Cuba into submission and Biden's policy of restarting engagement," said William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert and professor of government at Washington's American University.

The Trump administration has dealt blows to tourism, foreign investment and Cuba's energy supply by tightening restrictions on US travel, sanctioning oil shipments from Venezuela and activating a law allowing litigation against firms "trafficking" in expropriated properties, among other measures.

"Most the people who stayed at our bed and breakfast were Americans so reservations were down some 40 to 50 percent by the time the pandemic hit," said Jesus Manuel Rivero. His Casa Flamboyan B&B ranks No. 1 in Havana on Tripadvisor.

Washington has also attacked Cuba's medical missions in a campaign that saw its allies ousting them, hitting the country's top source of hard currency. Trump says the Cuban government trafficks in the doctors, keeping them in slave-like conditions. Havana has strongly denied the allegation.

All this has worsened Cuba's cash crunch. The embargo cost it a record $5.6 billion over the last year, the government has said, and exacerbated shortages of even basic goods like food.

Under Trump, the reduction of the US embassy in Havana to skeletal staffing and closure of the consular office after diplomats complained of a mysterious illness has also made it tough for Cubans to get visas to visit their family in the United States.

A Biden presidency would likely not only reverse Trump's policies but also resume dialogue on matters of mutual interest like health and security that had fizzled out of late, said Emily Mendrala, who coordinated congressional discussions on Cuba policy during a stint in Obama's National Security Council and now runs the Center for Democracy in the Americas.

Cuban dissidents, meanwhile, are divided over the US election. Some hope for a Biden win, saying engagement deprives their government of an excuse for its economic woes or repression.

Others, like Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of the island's largest opposition group, the Patriotic Union of Cuba, say that too much leniency toward the Cuban government as - in his view - under Obama emboldens it to crack down as it wishes.

"Whoever wins the Nov. 3 elections must listen to the calls for freedom of the Cuban people and other oppressed peoples," he said.

World+Biz / US Election 2020

Cuba / USA / US election 2020

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • International Monetary Fund logo : AP via UNB
    IMF sets time-bound reform agenda as it releases first tranche of loan
  • Shipped Bhola gas to cost higher, yet cheaper than spot LNG
    Shipped Bhola gas to cost higher, yet cheaper than spot LNG
  • January exports rise nearly 6% riding on high-value RMG items
    January exports rise nearly 6% riding on high-value RMG items

MOST VIEWED

  • Photo: Collected
    Haley to challenge Trump for 2024 Republican nomination
  • President of Brazil's Federal Senate Rodrigo Pacheco votes during a session to elect the new senate president in Brasilia, Brazil February 1, 2023. REUTERS/Ton Molina
    Brazil's Congress re-elects leaders in victory for Lula
  • Former Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan. Photo: Collected
    Imran Khan to contest from 33 seats in Pakistan National Assembly bypoll
  • A voter casts his ballot at a polling station during the second round of the parliamentary election in Tunis, Tunisia January 29, 2023. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi
    Tunisians elect weakened parliament on 11% turnout
  • British Minister without Portfolio Nadhim Zahawi looks on outside the Conservative Party's headquarters in London, Britain January 23, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
    UK PM Sunak fires party chairman Zahawi after breach of ministerial code
  • Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he attends a rally in Warren, Michigan, U.S., October 1, 2022. REUTERS/Chery Dieu-Nalio/File Photo
    Trump warns 2024 election 'our one shot' to save America

Related News

  • Bangladesh's Nur Khan among winners of US's Global Human Rights Defender Award
  • Biden says no F-16s for Ukraine as Russia claims gains
  • US House Republican to pursue safeguards on classified documents
  • IMF lifts 2023 growth forecast on China reopening, strength in US, Europe
  • North Korea calls US pledge of tanks to Ukraine 'unethical crime'

Features

Six Jeep Wranglers and a special XJ Jeep Cherokee set out into the depths of Lalakhal, Sylhet for an experience of a lifetime. Photo: Ahbaar Mohammad

Jeep Life Bangladesh: A club for Jeep owners to harness the power of their vehicles

20h | Wheels
While the Padma bridge in operation is changing the lives of millions in the south for the better, passenger rush to Shimulia ghat died down. Photo: Masum Billah

How are the Shimulia ghat businesses faring after Padma bridge?

22h | Panorama
After so many investments going embarrassingly wrong, as was the case with Sam Bankman-Fried, perhaps tech investors’ preference for less experience will wane. Photo: Bloomberg

Are you the next Steve Jobs? Good luck raising money in 2023

22h | Panorama
An elderly couple's lonely battle to save Dhaka's trees

An elderly couple's lonely battle to save Dhaka's trees

1d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

A proper price formula can help investors to plan big

A proper price formula can help investors to plan big

12h | TBS Round Table
Rumors about Sarika that everyone thinks are true

Rumors about Sarika that everyone thinks are true

10h | TBS Entertainment
Mugging rife in Tejgaon, murder in Wari

Mugging rife in Tejgaon, murder in Wari

13h | TBS Current Affairs
What secrets are hidden behind Adani's wealth?

What secrets are hidden behind Adani's wealth?

11h | TBS Stories

Most Read

1
Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!
Bangladesh

Bapex calls candidates for job test 9 years after advert!

2
Leepu realised his love for cars from a young age and for the last 40 years, he has transformed, designed and customised hundreds of cars. Photo: Collected
Panorama

'I am not crazy about cars anymore': Nizamuddin Awlia Leepu

3
Photo: Collected
Energy

8 Ctg power plants out of production

4
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo
Economy

IMF approves $4.7 billion loan for Bangladesh, calls for ambitious reforms

5
Photo: Collected
Court

Japanese mother gets guardianship of daughters, free to leave country

6
Fund cut as Dhaka's fast-track transit projects on slow spending lane
Infrastructure

Fund cut as Dhaka's fast-track transit projects on slow spending lane

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]