Biden promotes a complex shift in U.S.-Latin America policy

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The temporary protective status that Joe Biden’s administration has granted to Venezuelan citizens in the United States as a result of their country’s crisis is the first major factual indication of a change in Washington’s course toward Latin America. The turnaround seems slow and complex given the two most immediate conflicts in the region, Venezuela and Cuba.

The White House emphasizes that changing its strategy toward the Castro regime “is not among Biden’s top priorities” and that although it does not share the Republican administration’s sanctions strategy toward Caracas and will restore international cooperation, it is not rushing to ease sanctions either. The message serves to keep the pressure on in any future negotiations, but also notes the difficulties. Donald Trump’s last decisions, in fact, have increased international tension.

The ex-president’s doctrine for Latin America was based on the notion of a tyrannical troika encompassing Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. This group was a re-edition of that famous axis of evil that George W. Bush popularized in 2002: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.

In Washington there are few coincidences and this is not one of them. The last Republican president surrounded himself with sharks from the Bush junior era, such as John Bolton, the National Security Advisor with whom he would eventually clash; or Elliott Abrams, Ronald Reagan’s old gladiator for Central America, appointed by Trump as special envoy to Venezuela.

“We have many options for Venezuela, including military, if necessary,” Trump said in August 2017, in the middle of his vacation, from his golf club in Bedminster (New Jersey). “I’m not going to rule out the military option, it’s our neighbor and we have troops all over the world. Venezuela is not far away and people there are suffering and dying,” he continued, with his very particular style, able to link an armed action to the convenience of its location.

But this warlike ardor, to the chagrin of some nostalgists, did not go beyond speeches. And his words of support for the Venezuelan people, to the frustration of many others, did not materialize during the protective status claimed by the opponents of Nicolás Maduro’s regime either.

Only on his last day in the White House, on January 19th, did he approve an order to defer deportations of Venezuelans for 18 months, which would keep them in an administrative limbo and not allow them to work, unlike the TPS (temporary protected status) just announced by the Democratic president. What Trump did was tighten the sanctions. He redoubled those directed at individuals and attacked the country’s economic life-support, oil, to force Maduro to call elections.

The current US government highlights the meager results brought about by the strategy. “We have seen how the regime and the markets have adapted to the oil sanctions and we may continue like this for who knows how long. There is no rush to suspend those sanctions, but there is a recognition that unilateral fines have not worked to force elections and that the previous administration failed to coordinate with Europe and Latin American allies,” a White House official explained Monday in a conversation with reporters.

Still, Biden “will continue the pressure,” the same source said, “until Maduro sits down at the table and makes the decision to call elections.” “When that happens, we will talk to the international community to see which sanctions could be lifted.”

The drums of war are not resounding now in the White House and the long-awaited temporary protection has been granted, but Washington is not opening a blank page in the relationship to Caracas. Unlike the European Union, the United States continues to recognize Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president, despite the fact that the National Assembly, from which his constitutional legitimacy originated, changed political colors after the December elections (the results of which were not recognized by the EU).

Not an inch has changed in the notion that Maduro’s government is illegitimate, although Trump’s election campaign, accusing Biden of being a socialist, has impacted the more conservative Latino electorate, which helped the Republican win the election in the coveted state of Florida.

“The policy of pressure against Venezuela is actually quite bipartisan, and it is normal that Biden will not rush to soften that pressure for no clear reason. He won’t rush with Cuba either, he’s moderate, so why pursue that fight at the domestic level?” reflects Dany Bahar, a regional economics expert at the Brookings Institution.

Trump’s path on Cuba, which Biden has vowed to review, is an uncomfortable one in the eyes of some citizens. In the twilight of his presidency, the Republican included the Cuban dictatorship in the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, which it

shares only with Syria, North Korea and Iran, and left his successor in a position to remove it from there.

The designation, which leads to the imposition of “sanctions on people and countries” that trade with the island, prompted rejection from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Latin American politicians such as former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

The European Union and Spain in particular are also waiting for Biden to reverse the entry into force of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which allows lawsuits by US citizens against international companies for profiting from property confiscated by the Castro regime after the revolution. This rule had been suspended by all US presidents since 1996 and Trump decided to activate it in 2019.

On this issue, the US administration suggests that nothing is going to happen too fast. “The policy shift toward Cuba does not figure in the president’s priorities, which are the pandemic, the economic recovery, and rebuilding alliances abroad,” a National Security Council spokesperson replied. Nevertheless, the White House will “carefully review” the previous administration’s decisions, she added.

In addition to a change on these two specific fronts, which also create problems with European allies, a thawing process like the one undertaken by Barack Obama is unlikely in the short term.

“We are committed to making human rights the focus of our foreign policy, and that includes redoubling our commitment to human rights in the hemisphere,” the National Security Council spokesperson also explained. On Biden’s foreign policy team are veterans of Barack Obama’s administration, such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also worked in the department during Bill Clinton’s term. The director for the Latin American region at the National Security Council is Juan S. Gonzalez, who had held the same position and also advised Biden as vice-president.

Biden’s arrival at the White House also raised great expectations on the immigration issue. The new administration has promoted a migration reform focused on the reasons for emigration from Central America, with an investment plan of US$4 billion (about R$23.21 billion) over 4 years to boost the region’s economy. He also vowed to “humanize” the process of arrival and entry into the United States, after years of Trump’s iron fist, but this will also take time and, as Washington wanted to emphasize, does not translate into an open-door policy.

In a recent “virtual visit” by Blinken to Mexico, the diplomatic chief gave a clear warning to people fleeing poverty and misery in Central America: “To anyone who is thinking of taking this trip, our message is: don’t do it. We are strictly enforcing the new migration laws and our border security measures. The border is closed to illegal immigration.”

Nevertheless, the pressure on the border is not abating. According to figures published by The New York Times on Monday, March 8th, the number of unaccompanied migrant minors detained at the southern border of the United States has tripled in the past two weeks.

Source: El Pais

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