April 16, 2021 last updated 13:2 ET
A woman holds up a sign that reads, in Spanish, “Cubans with Biden,” as then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks in Miramar, Florida, Oct. 13, 2020 (AP photo by Carolyn Kaster).
A Simple Reset Won’t Make U.S.-Cuba Ties More Sustainable
Few countries suffered more from former President Donald Trump’s policies than Cuba. The Trump administration imposed sanctions and restrictions designed to blow up the historic detente between Washington and Havana forged by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. These measures—as well as sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, which cut off a much-needed source of subsidized energy—battered Cuba’s state-run economy, which has also been hard-hit by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country’s critical tourism sector. As a result, in a moment of political transition and quickening market reforms, Cuba is now experiencing its worst economic crisis since the “Special Period,” as the years of economic free fall following the collapse of the Soviet Union are known.