HOW BIDEN’S INACTION IS AGGRAVATING CUBA’S FOOD CRISIS

If President
Biden wants to support human rights in Cuba and empower the Cuban people, he
can start by alleviating the food crisis by ending Trump’s prohibition on
remittances and restoring the right of U.S. residents to travel.

By William M. LeoGrande May 27, 2021

Original
Article,  in Common
Dreams,

While
President Joe Biden dithers about when or whether to keep his
campaign promise to roll back Donald Trump’s economic sanctions on Cuba, people
on the island are going hungry. Cuba imports 70 percent of its food and its
foreign exchange earnings have plummeted due to the cut-off of remittances by
Trump and the closure of the tourism industry by COVID-19. Increases in world
market prices for food have aggravated an already
precarious situation, producing severe shortages and a looming humanitarian
crisis. 

Hunger
has been a weapon in Washington’s arsenal against Cuba ever since Dwight D.
Eisenhower sat in the White House. In January 1960, Ike suggested blockading the island, arguing,
“If they (the Cuban people) are hungry, they will throw Castro out.”
In April 1960, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
Lester D. Mallory proposed, “Every possible means
should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba…to bring
about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Even
though the United States no longer prohibits the sale of food to Cuba, by
intensifying economic sanctions, Washington impedes Cuba’s ability to earn
enough money to buy adequate food supplies from anywhere.

President
John F. Kennedy imposed the most comprehensive economic embargo that the United States has ever imposed
on any country, including prohibitions on both food and medicine sales. The
core of that embargo has remained in place ever since.

From 1975
to 1992, Cuba could buy goods from the subsidiaries of U.S. companies in third
countries. Ninety percent of the $700 million in goods Cuba
bought annually was food and medicine. President George H. W. Bush, with
presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s support, signed the 1992 Cuban Democracy
Act, cutting off those sales just as the Cuban economy collapsed due to the
loss of Soviet aid. Cubans went hungry then, too. “Food shortages and
distribution problems have caused malnutrition and disease,” the CIA reported in August 1993.

The Trump
administration’s campaign of “maximum pressure” was designed to block
Cuba’s sources of foreign exchange earnings by limiting U.S. travel,
remittances, and Cuba’s earnings from the export of medical services. The goal,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told European diplomats, was to
“starve” the island to bring down the regime. So far, President Biden
has left all these sanctions in place.

Even
though the United States no longer prohibits the sale of food to Cuba, by intensifying economic
sanctions, Washington impedes Cuba’s ability to earn enough money to buy
adequate food supplies from anywhere. Moreover, by exacerbating food shortages,
forcing Cubans to stand in line for hours in the midst of the
pandemic, U.S. policy also impedes Cuba’s ability to control the spread of
COVID.

The
international community regards using food as an instrument of coercion to be a
violation of international humanitarian law. In 2018, the UN Security Council
voted unanimously to approve Resolution 2417, which condemns the deliberate
deprivation of food “in conflict situations” as a threat to
international peace and security. Resolution 2417 focuses on armed conflicts,
but the underlying principle is no less applicable to conflicts in which one
country has the ability to impose food insecurity on another, even without the
use of armed force.

The
international community has also made clear what it thinks of the U.S. embargo.
Since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly has annually voted
overwhelmingly for a resolution calling on the United States to lift
the embargo because of its “adverse effects…on the Cuban people.” In
2019, the vote was 187 in favor, three against (the United States, Israel, and
Brazil). 

The Biden
administration has yet to complete its review of Cuba policy, but officials,
when asked, never fail to say that it will center on democracy, human rights,
and “empowering the Cuban people.” In his confirmation hearing, Brian Nichols, Biden’s
nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs,
declared, “We should be focusing our efforts on what is best for the Cuban
people.”

No long,
drawn out policy review is needed to recognize that there is a food crisis in
Cuba due in part to U.S. policies, and that helping alleviate it is a moral
obligation—an extension of the responsibility to protect.

On Cuban
Independence Day, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken addressed the Cuban people directly,
assuring them, “We recognize the challenges many of you face in your daily
lives,” and pledged, “We will support those improving the lives of
families and workers.”

Fine
sentiments, but their sincerity is belied by the Trump-era sanctions that the
Biden administration has done nothing to change, sanctions that make the daily
lives of Cuban families harder. Having enough to eat is a basic human right,
too, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt affirmed when he included “Freedom
from Want” among his “Four Freedoms.” Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, which the United States signed, includes adequate food as a right.

If
President Biden wants to support human rights in Cuba and empower the Cuban
people, he can start by alleviating the food crisis by ending Trump’s
prohibition on remittances and restoring the right of U.S. residents to travel.
Remittances put money directly into the pockets of Cuban families. Restoring
the right to travel will help Cuba’s ailing private sector recover post-COVID.
The resulting inflow of foreign exchange currency will enable the government to
import more food, especially for marginalized populations—single mothers, the
elderly, and the poor—who have no direct access to hard currency.

There is
no excuse for delay. No long, drawn out policy review is needed to recognize
that there is a food crisis in Cuba due in part to U.S. policies, and that
helping alleviate it is a moral obligation—an extension of the responsibility to protect. Moreover, these are
actions Biden promised he would take during the presidential
campaign. Every day he delays is another day that Cubans go hungry.

William
M. LeoGrande is Professor of Government at American University in Washington,
DC, and co-author with Peter Kornbluh of Back
Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and
Havana (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).