That’s what I was told recently by Guillermo Grenier, the co-director of the FIU Cuba Poll, a biennial poll that has researched Florida Cuban-Americans’ opinions on US policies toward Cuba since 1991. Hyperbole aside, the sentiment is clear: Democratic presidents (and presidential candidates) should not shy away from anti-embargo policies out of concern that doing so will worsen Democratic electoral fortunes. This stands in sharp contrast to decades of election math that has encouraged Democrats to do or say little in the way of changing Cuba policy.
But if this is true, why hasn’t President Biden removed Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list? Why hasn’t he reversed the Trump Administration’s policies that strengthened the embargo? Why hasn’t he issued as many licenses expanding trade with Cuba as President Obama did? Even though he cannot unilaterally repeal the embargo, why hasn’t he pushed harder to weaken it? The answer is simple: he just doesn’t care enough.
Even though Democratic presidents would not damage their or their Democratic colleagues’ electoral chances by opposing the embargo, they probably perceive any gain from changing Cuba policy to be inconsequential. In other words, President Biden has little motivation to relax the embargo because the number of people who would vote blue simply because Democrats were willing to weaken the sanctions against Cuba is next to zero. But collecting votes is not all that matters (or should matter) to politicians. President Biden (and future Democratic presidents) should see relaxing the embargo as a priority, even if it would not provide Democrats with any immediate electoral gains.
Over the past six decades, the embargo—initially imposed by President Kennedy in 1962, codified into law (principally under the Clinton administration in 1996), partially relaxed by President Obama, strengthened by President Trump, and largely left unchanged by President Biden—has evolved into a complex web of sanctions with devastating consequences on Cuba’s economy. Earlier this year, the Cuban government estimated that the embargo’s yearly cost had risen to $5 billion, bringing the total cost to Cuba to approximately $150 billion since the embargo’s inception. In the foreground of this: according to a 2024 study by the Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (a Spain-based, anti-Cuban government NGO), 61% of Cuban households are struggling to buy basic necessities and 7/10 of Cubans report skipping meals regularly. But poverty is not the only way that Cubans feel the embargo’s effects.
On October 17, Cubans suffered a power outage (reportedly caused in large part by fuel shortages and failing infrastructure) that lasted–nationally–for more than two days (and in numerous areas for more than four days). What happens when hospitals all over the country lose power? Or when food storage units can’t keep goods refrigerated? Or when water pumps that depend on electricity can’t function? Or when Cuba’s economic, energy, and infrastructural crises are compounded by climate crises—as will happen with increased frequency due to global warming (and just happened with Hurricane Oscar)? Can you imagine the humanitarian catastrophe that could result? These crises are not caused solely by US sanctions, but they are undoubtedly worsened by them. Without a change in US policy, the future looks grim for the Cuban people.
The danger to Cuban life posed by the embargo is not the only reason that President Biden must prioritize its relaxation, however. US taxpayers pay millions of dollars yearly toward sanctions enforcement that could be redirected toward other areas in need of funding. The embargo denies US businesses and citizens trade, investment, and travel opportunities. It deprives the federal government of tax revenue that would be produced by increased US-Cuba trade and tourism if the embargo were to be relaxed. It is an enormous source of conflict between the US and Cuba that limits both governments’ willingness to act in tandem on environmental protection, public health, narcotics trafficking, and other important issues that would benefit greatly from bilateral US-Cuba cooperation.
In addition, many have argued that the embargo is, in fact, illegal under international law. Along these lines, nearly the entire UN General Assembly (the US and Israel being the only consistent dissenters) has voted in favor of a resolution demanding the end of the US embargo every year since 1992. Consistently ignoring resolutions adopted by 99% of the international community (including our closest allies) undermines the legitimacy of the UN as a governing body. If the US disregards General Assembly resolutions at will and has veto power in the UN Security Council, the UN has quite literally zero power over US action. This creates friction with our allies and “adversaries” alike. Relaxing the embargo would also allow the US to build a stronger relationship with Cuba that prevents “adversaries” from solidifying ties with Cuba at the US’s detriment (e.g., the Cuban Missile Crisis). Our foreign relations–with our allies, “adversaries”, and Cuba itself–would be less impeded by policy disagreement if the embargo were to be relaxed.
There is one more key way in which the embargo poses a danger to US interests. Perhaps most critically to US policymakers given the current political climate, US sanctions on Cuba stimulate Cuban-US migration at a time when leaders from both major US political parties concur that the US immigration system is facing a crisis. Cubans are likely to be a key contributor to this “crisis”; the Cuban government stated in July 2024 that over one million Cubans had emigrated since 2020. This figure may even be an underestimate, however, as the US Customs and Border Patrol reports more than 633,000 encounters with Cuban migrants since 2021 alone. Considering that “encounters” only include Cubans who crossed the border illegally or overstayed other types of visas and were caught, and exclude all those who immigrated through legal pathways like the Humanitarian Parole Program, the total number of Cuban emigrants since 2021 is likely significantly higher than the numbers suggested by the CBP and Cuban government. Without a relaxation of US sanctions on Cuba, there is no indication that the Cuban emigration crisis will improve, and in turn, a steady flow of migrants will continue to enter the US amid policymakers’ complaints of our “broken immigration system” and the “migrant invasion”. It would be a grave mistake for US policymakers to focus their response to the immigration crisis on attempting to prevent entry to the US (e.g. through strengthening border security) when there are numerous opportunities to prevent emigration from sending countries simply by not strangling those countries’ economies.
There are numerous, urgent reasons why President Biden should see embargo policy as a priority and act to weaken the sanctions. The embargo endangers Cubans’ access to health care, education, electricity, transportation, food, and water and has proven to be completely ineffective in accomplishing its stated goal: initiating regime change in Cuba. The embargo costs the US federal government money. It takes away potential profits from US businesses eager to trade with Cuba. It keeps the US out of line with international law and the international community. It prevents US-Cuba cooperation on issues that would greatly benefit from bilateral action. And finally, it puts pressure on the US immigration system in a moment in which it cannot handle stress.
President Biden has the opportunity to alleviate Cuba’s economic crisis and potentially prevent humanitarian catastrophe, with zero Democratic electoral loss and significant domestic and foreign political benefit. It would be a political and moral travesty to not act. It is imperative that President Biden–and if she is elected, Vice President Harris–take immediate steps to relax el bloqueo on Cuba.
Coby Waugh (’24) is a senior at Hunter College pursuing a Political Science major, Public Policy minor, and Spanish concentration within the Thomas Hunter Honors Program. His undergraduate research has largely focused on Cuba: he wrote his Political Science honors thesis analyzing the Cuban leadership’s decision to ally with the USSR, and he studied at the University of Havana for several months in 2023, during which time he explored the differences between the US and Cuban legal systems. In the summer of 2024, he returned to Havana to conduct archival research documenting the struggle for power between the PSP and M-26-7, the two leading leftist groups at the beginning of the Cuban Revolution. He plans to go to graduate school for International Relations.