Cuban immigrants to the United States by sea.
Cuba is to the United States like the annoying lover described in the proverb - "can't live with him, can't live without him".
Ideologically speaking, since Castro launched the revolution, successive US governments have been eager for Cuba to fend for itself; but in terms of regional relations in the Americas, the United States, which prides itself on being the controller of the region, has had to repeatedly adjust US-Cuba relations and tangled between the two policy orientations of "suppression" and "indoctrination".
Now that the Summit of the Americas is about to be convened, the United States has once again shown a tangled attitude towards Cuba during the preparatory period: on the issue of whether to invite Cuba to participate, US President Biden still seems to have failed to make up his mind.
Judging from the momentum of the United States' ambitious organization of the ninth Summit of the Americas, it is imperative to drastically adjust the Latin American policy during the Trump administration. But an important part of the US-Latin American relationship is the complex relationship between the United States and radical left-wing countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, which is a "prescribed action" that no US government can avoid. After Trump took office, he was bent on taking advantage of the favorable environment of Latin American politics to "turn right" to eradicate the nail in the eye of the Maduro regime in Venezuela, and the economic sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba were constantly increased. Unexpectedly, Maduro was "soft" in foreign relations, and insisted until Trump's re-election failure was eclipsed by the scene, and he still stood firm on the stage, so the "mess" of US-Venezuela relations was thrown to Biden.
Biden is not only the vice president of the Obama administration, but also the "old Latin America" who has long been in charge of the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. On the whole, Biden has a strong willingness to continue the "return to Latin America" policy in the late Obama administration, but in practice, he has to worry about the US-Latin American relationship that has deteriorated to a certain extent. In particular, in relations with Cuba, the United States has previously closed its consular office in Cuba, which has not only led to the deterioration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, but also further exacerbated the problem of illegal immigration in the southern borders of the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, left, and Homeland Security Secretary Majorcas attend a news conference in Panama City.
The Biden administration is trying to use the immigration issue as a breakthrough to ease relations with Latin American countries. At panama's "immigration conference" on April 20, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken announced that "the United States is considering resuming the immigration agreement with Cuba," saying that it would explore the possibility of resuming the immigration agreement with Cuba in the context of high-level dialogue, flaunting that this willingness of the United States "reflects a determination to maintain a legal, orderly, and humane route of immigration," and said that the U.S. Embassy in Havana has begun a limited processing of immigrant visas, but currently only provides "U.S. citizenship services" and "emergency non-immigrant visa processing," in other words. Existing consular services still do not help to solve the immigration problem.
However, even in the course of the official high-level dialogue, the United States and Cuba have continued to "fight of words": U.S. officials say they see a massive increase in irregular, undocumented Cuban immigrants traveling to the United States by land and sea and creating border and social problems; Cuba says that the harsh sanctions imposed on Cuba by the U.S. government and the decision to close consular offices have led to a surge in "irregular immigration" and the number of people traveling to the United States through dangerous routes.
The truth is that no matter how well Blinken flaunts himself with justice and responsibility in his speech, the ultimate goal of his policies is still to alleviate the border problems, immigration pressures and social contradictions of the United States itself by controlling the phenomenon of immigration. This can be seen from the fact that the United States still clings to the ideological struggle against the left countries: on the one hand, the Biden administration has negotiated with the Maduro government on the oil trade in order to alleviate the energy pressure brought about by the War between Russia and Ukraine; on the other hand, it hastily declared that the "oil negotiations with Venezuela" will not change its attitude on political issues, and even announced that the "official representatives" of the Venezuelan-American summit recognized by the United States can only be sent by the opposition "provisional government", and this "provisional government" is supported by the United States.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez at a news conference in Havana on Tuesday.
Coincidentally, while holding high-level dialogues with Cuba and discussing immigration issues, Biden has also been hesitant to make up his mind on whether to invite Cuba to participate, which has further aroused the dissatisfaction of the Cuban side.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez criticized the United States for "attempting to exclude Cuba from the Inter-American Summit" at a press conference in Havana on April 26. He noted that the Cuban side had been informed that the United States Government "is pressuring other countries to agree to the decision not to invite Cuba".
At the same time, Rodriguez also criticized the two-sided behavior of the United States, mentioning that in the high-level bilateral dialogue between the United States and Cuba last week, the United States was still proposing to jointly solve the immigration problem with Cuba, but it turned its face and did not recognize people on the topic of the Inter-American summit. "We think the U.S.-Cuban high-level dialogue augurs well, but if we are excluded from the Summit of the Americas, then the United States is ostensibly making a gesture to address common problems, but behind it is an attempt to divert public attention."
In response to the Cuban foreign minister's criticism, the U.S. State Department responded that the United States had not yet issued a formal invitation to the Summit of the Americas, so Rodriguez's allegations were baseless. But the fact is that in a series of recent high-level visits, the United States has issued invitations to Panama, Brazil and other Latin American countries to participate in the meeting.
The view was expressed that perhaps the United States had indeed considered inviting Cuba to participate in the meeting, but it must be in contact with other countries before inviting Cuba in order to create the most favorable environment for Latin American policy in the future.
Whatever the truth, Cuba has already issued a rebuke and put the United States in an awkward position — whether or not Biden had previously planned to allow Cuba to attend, it now seems that he has to invite the "annoying lover".
Author: Zhang Junrong
Editor: Liu Chang
Photo: Xinhua News Agency, Reuters