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Protesters shout slogans against the government during a demonstration, which also involved counter-protesters who are in support of the government, amidst the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Havana, Cuba July 11, 2021.
What We're Watching: The streets of Cuba
Cuban protest. For months, Cuban activists and dissidents have been planning a fresh, island-wide, anti-government protest. Well, the day is November 15, and the stakes are high. The Cuban regime, which has refused to issue permits for any marches, says it will not tolerate any unrest, and has accused the US of being behind the demonstrations. Back in July, you might remember, Cuba witnessed the biggest anti-government protests in decades, as popular anger over shortages, poverty, and political repression boiled over into the streets. Since then some 1,200 people have been arrested, with roughly half of them languishing in jail while awaiting trial on charges of sedition or sabotage that carry sentences of up to 25 years. We're keeping an eye not only on what happens in Cuba, but also on how the Biden administration responds. The US president will be under immense pressure from the powerful Cuban-American constituency in Florida, as well as Republicans more broadly, to impose tougher sanctions on the island. But there's an argument that the interests of the Cuban people might be better served by doing just the opposite.
What We're Watching: Cuba's internet crackdown, Erdogan woos Ethiopia, Merkel's Russia-Ukraine tour
Cuba's internet crackdown: Just weeks after Cubans used social media to mobilize the biggest anti-government protests in decades, the communist regime will now criminalize using social media to criticize the government. The new law states that Cubans cannot use any telecommunications to undermine the country's "public order," and that internet providers must monitor users' activities and even shut down service when deemed necessary. Clearly, this move is a guise for the government to crack down on all dissent, and to codify what they've already been doing. But many emboldened Cubans, who only got online on their smartphones in 2018, say they will not back down on criticizing the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel for lack of food, medicine and general economic stagnation that's thrust millions into poverty. During recent mass protests, the government staged a brutal crackdown and shut down the internet, prompting the Biden administration to sanction Cuban officials and the police force for human rights abuses. The US has also said that it's looking for alternative ways to provide internet access to Cubans, possibly through VPN technology, a workaround solution that could not be penetrated by the draconian Cuban regime. But they are not there yet, the Biden administration says.
Turkey's diplomat-in-chief: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fashions himself as an international diplomat these days, now offering to step in to fix conflict-ridden Ethiopia. After meeting with Ethiopia's beleaguered Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed this week, Erdogan called for a peaceful resolution in Tigray, where the government has been waging a brutal crackdown against ethnic Tigrayans since November last year. Erdogan, who was in Addis Ababa to sign a defense agreement with Abiy (details remain scarce), is worried that instability in Ethiopia threatens the entire Horn of Africa. Erdogan also offered to mediate an ongoing row between Sudan and Ethiopia over the disputed al-Fashaga region. Sudan and Ethiopia reached a deal in 2008 agreeing to a "soft border" in that area, but political changes inside Ethiopia since Abiy came to power in 2018, have revived the old land dispute. Disagreements over al-Fashaga, an agricultural area straddling both states that was never clearly demarcated, dates back to colonial-era treaties signed in 1902, but if Erdogan wants to take a shot at building bridges, we say go for it!
Merkel on tour: Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will hand over the reins after Germany's general election on September 26, is trying her hand at some final diplomatic outreach. Merkel will arrive in Moscow on Friday to meet President Vladimir Putin, presumably for the last time. On the agenda: the quagmire in eastern Ukraine as a result of Russia's aggression there, and Afghanistan. Since Merkel last visited Russia over 18-months ago, bilateral relations have plummeted, most notably after the Kremlin's alleged poisoning of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who sought medical treatment in Germany. But the German leader has also backed Russia's plans to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would double Russia's natural gas supplies to Germany. Merkel will also make a pit stop in Ukraine on Friday. Indeed, this comes at a very interesting time after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky panned Western allies this week for not green-lighting Kyiv's accession to NATO. Speaking directly to the US and the EU, it seems, Zelensky said: you're sending "a signal to other countries that you guys are not welcome here and Russia is just around the corner, increasing its clout."
Biden’s Caribbean surprises
All elected leaders face two problems: crises that weren't on the agenda will strike from unexpected directions, and all possible responses are less than ideal.
Hey, Joe Biden, Cuba's on line one, and Haiti's holding on line two.
What's happening?
In Cuba, COVID-exacerbated shortages of affordable food, medicine, liberty, and good government have triggered a startling surge of protests, the largest in decades, in cities across the island. The Cuban government has responded with pepper spray, handcuffs, internet cutoffs, accusations against Washington, and pleas for patience from Cuba's beleaguered people.
In Haiti, the shocking assassination of President Jovenel Moïse has created chaos in one of the world's poorest countries. Moïse had warned that unnamed oligarchs wanted him dead. For now, ambitious politicians and various criminal gangs are competing for power in Haiti, and fears of more violence are on the rise. Hundreds of Haitians, including children, have gathered outside the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince to beg for a ticket out of their country.
The US president faces intense pressure to act because these two countries are neighbors and there are large numbers of Cuban and Haitian Americans living in the United States. Both communities are concentrated in the politically crucial state of Florida.
What should Biden do about these crises?
Cuba options
As Barack Obama's vice president, Biden was a key foreign-policy player in an administration that wanted to ease a half-century of US isolation of Cuba. After all, Cuba's communists had survived the US policy of embargo, even after the Cold War's end left Cuba without its Soviet benefactor. If a policy hasn't worked in 50 years, try something else.
In March, dozens of Democratic Party lawmakers signed a letter which called on Biden to ease Trump administration restrictions on travel and the right of Cuban Americans to send money to family members living in Cuba, travel restrictions between Cuba and the US, and to offer medical aid to help Cubans survive COVID.
But if Biden eases economic pressures now, he'll be bailing out a communist dictatorship responsible for decades of repression and economic misery for ordinary Cubans. Republicans, led by Donald Trump and Florida Governor (and likely presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis have called on US companies to support Cuba's protesters, including by providing internet access into Cuba remotely. The US, they argue, must help Cubans risking arrest (or worse) for democracy and human rights to communicate with one another and the outside world.
Haiti options
Haiti's interim government, led by temporary Prime Minister Claude Joseph, wants the Biden administration to send US soldiers into Haiti to halt the risk of further violence, protect critical infrastructure, and safeguard the vote to replace the assassinated president. The White House says it's working with Joseph to hold elections as soon as possible, but Biden is deeply reluctant to inject US troops into this unstable situation. US soldiers can't bring democracy to Haiti any more than they could bring it to Afghanistan.
In addition to its political crisis, Haiti's government has not been able to provide its people with a single dose of COVID vaccine. This is an area the US can help. On Wednesday, the US delivered 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to Haiti, and promised more will come. But without well-armed and well-trained soldiers to safeguard the process, vaccinations can be slowed by warring criminal gangs.
To the boats?
Another problem Biden must face: Whenever there's unrest in Cuba or Haiti, there's a risk that desperate people will climb into boats to attempt the dangerous crossing to Florida. It's both a humanitarian crisis and a political headache waiting to happen. Under both US and international law, asylum-seekers have a recognized right to file a claim no matter how they enter the country, but in the past, US officials have sometimes intercepted Cuban and Haitian boats before they enter US territory.
Biden's Homeland Security chief, himself the son of Cuban refugees, has made clear the administration's position: "If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States." Though motivated by a desire to prevent innocent people from drowning, that policy has been denounced as "shameful" by human rights advocates, who argue that Haitians fleeing violence and Cubans fleeing tyranny have very good cause to apply for asylum.
Bottom line: Joe Biden would rather think about infrastructure spending, vaccinations and job creation, but Cuba and Haiti will continue to have other ideas.
Cuba internet censorship amid protests; pressure grows against Huawei
Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, Eurasia Group senior advisor and former MEP, discusses trends in big tech, privacy protection and cyberspace:
Cuba has curbed access to messaging apps amid protests. How controlled and censored is Cuba's internet?
Well, any debate and criticism is tightly controlled in Cuba, including through information, monitoring and monopoly. But activists such as blogger Yoani Sánchez have always been brave in defying repression and making sure that messages of Cubans reached others online across the world. Now mobile internet has become accessible to Cubans since about two years, but accessing it remains incredibly expensive. But the fact that the regime in Cuba once again seeks to censor people through shutting down internet services actually shows it is its Achilles' heel. As Yoani has said, the Castros have lost the internet.
On a different note, the FCC is finalizing a program to replace Huawei equipment in the United States. Will Europe soon make a similar move?
Well, I wouldn't wait for it, although pressure is growing against Huawei in Europe too. Sweden has taken a tough line along with Eastern European countries, while a country like Spain has sought a much more gradual approach. And one of the main challenges for Europeans is to ensure a united position at the intersection of its single market and 27 nationally decided national security thresholds. It is a question also impacting universities as they continue to accept research grants from companies like Huawei.
Biden and Merkel will talk China strategy; Cuban economic crisis
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week from Washington, DC, with a look at the upcoming Biden/Merkel meeting, Haiti in crisis, and the ongoing protests in Cuba.
Biden is hosting Angela Merkel in Washington this week. What's on the agenda?
Most important is going to be China. That's not what the headlines are right now. They're all talking Nord Stream and cybersecurity and all that. But the reality is Biden wants to coordinate China policy with his top allies. He's had a lot of success with Japan. He's had success with South Korea. Those are the first two leaders to have been invited to Washington. He's probably going to have some success with Angela Merkel as well, because there is increasingly backlash against Xi Jinping and his efforts to consolidate a Chinese model, vaccine nationalism, lack of transparency on origins of the crisis, and all this kind of stuff. Technology hits, not allowing companies to IPO abroad. The Germans are angry too. And I think that is going to be the top issue they discuss.
A week after the assassination of Haiti's president. What's happening there?
Country is in complete disarray. The military basically is running the place by default right now, but they don't have control. Gangs are running all over the country. And the Haitian government, such as it is, is asking for international intervention, peacekeepers from the United States and others. The good news is that if the US were to provide some support, pretty much every other country in the Western Hemisphere would support it and probably many would participate. So it doesn't have to be American intervention by itself. Clearly, they also need humanitarian support and jabs. There have been no vaccinations on Haiti so far. Real problem for that country.
What sparked Cuba's recent protests? The biggest in decades.
Well, it's a combination of the biggest economic and healthcare crisis in decades and the government that's been really badly run under dictatorship, and stepped-up US sanctions. In the last year, there's been no tourism to Cuba. They haven't had money to put into actually developing the sugar crop, which has meant that that's underperformed too. They don't have any money. Venezuela's not providing support like they used to because they've collapsed. The Russians don't really care. So you've got thousands of people demonstrating around the country, and it is possible that the government will fall. They have enough military capacity to shut down these demonstrations, but they want to be careful about not killing a bunch of people in the streets because that could really blow up in their faces. So worth watching carefully.
People hold Cuba's national flag during protests against and in support of the government in Havana.
A rare revolt in Cuba
On Sunday afternoon, thousands of Cubans did something remarkable in a police state: take to the streets in the biggest protest against the government in almost 30 years. Yet only dozens were arrested the next day. They are all risking lengthy jail terms to demand access to scarce food, medicine, and COVID vaccines.
How did we get here, and what might come next?
From COVID containment to economic tragedy. Cuba avoided the first wave of the pandemic by closing its borders and implementing tough restrictions. In the early stages, Havana was even sending doctors to help friendly nations in need. But stopping the virus came with a price: shutting itself off from the world killed the tourist industry, the main source of foreign cash for Cuba's state-run economy. That in turn hurt sugar, Cuba's top export, which last May had its worst harvest in over a century because growers can't afford to buy enough fertilizer and machinery.
Throughout 2020, the economic crisis was further aggravated by tougher US sanctions under the Trump administration — which made it virtually impossible for Cuban Americans to send remittances back home — as well as dwindling oil supplies from political bedfellow Venezuela. When Cuba's food rationing system collapsed a year ago, the regime had no choice but to bring back 1990s-era "dollar stores" (where foreign residents and locals with access to dollars can buy goods in foreign currency instead of worthless pesos) to pay for much-needed imports.
Things have since gone from bad to worse. GDP declined by 11 percent in 2020, and overall scarcity could make prices shoot up by as much as 900 percent this year. And COVID is now raging: authorities on Sunday reported almost 7,000 new daily infections and 47 deaths, the highest figures to date. (Cuba claims to have developed two highly effective homegrown COVID vaccines, but the vaccination campaign is losing steam because it's running out of needles.)
Tough choice for Havana. The latest protests are the most significant public display of discontent with the regime since the 1994 Maleconazo, when Cubans rose up to complain about shortages after Soviet subsidies dried up following the collapse of the USSR. Back then, all it took was a riveting speech by the charismatic Fidel Castro to end the demonstrations. But Fidel died in 2016, and last April his younger brother Raúl stepped down as head of the ruling Communist Party.
With both Castros gone, it's hard to predict how Havana will respond. Although Miguel Díaz-Canel is the president and leader of the party, it's unclear whether the powerful military would obey him if he orders a Tiananmen-style violent crackdown because he's not a Castro. On the other hand, caving to the protesters without putting up a fight would make Díaz-Canel look weak in the eyes of the army and the people, especially older Cubans who support the regime.
Miami and Washington are watching closely. Cuban Americans — most of them rabid anti-communists — are immensely influential in US politics through Florida, a known swing state which former president Trump won in 2020 by an even larger margin than in 2016. Trump courted the Cuban American vote there by designating Cuba a state sponsor of terror right before the election, while Biden oversaw Cuba's removal from the same list when he was Obama's VP.
Biden is likely to face immense pressure by Republicans, (most of) his own party, and Cuban Americans themselves to get tough on the regime, perhaps by further tightening economic sanctions. But if he pushes Havana too hard, Biden risks thousands of Cubans getting on boats to Miami to flee the island's economic implosion — as they did in 1994. With migrant flows to the US southern border still high, in part because of more Cuban asylum seekers, the last thing the Biden administration wants is another immigration crisis.
Whatever happens in the coming days and weeks, Cuba's problems aren't going away. So far, the Cuban government has mostly shown restraint in dealing with the protesters, but it may change its tune if the rallies grow, as they probably will if tech-savvy young Cubans continue to mobilize on social media (despite frequent internet blackouts). What's more, the country's leaders find the protesters' demands reasonable — they just don't have money to pay for them right now. The regime is in survival mode, and needs time to weather the storm.
Protests in Cuba. How will the US respond?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, kicking off your week. A little Quick Take. Thought I would talk about Cuba, not a country we talk about all that often. Communist state, Raúl Castro just stepped down, and the biggest demonstrations across the entire country in decades. Talking about absence of vaccines, problems in healthcare, but also anger at the poverty, the economic mismanagement, the reality of the lack of liberty of living in a communist regime.
The Trump administration had put pretty significant sanctions back on after Obama tried to loosen up. I expect that this is going to make Cuba a bigger issue for lots of folks in the United States that would like to see the back of this Cuban regime. The question is, how does the United States try to address it? Does it shut the Cubans down even harder, make the country pay economically for the fact that they are treating their people so badly or does it use this as an opportunity to open up? I'll tell you.
I've actually done a fair bit of work on issues of sanctions and countries around the world, because there are two types of political stability. You have countries that are stable because they're open like Canada or Germany or Japan, or even the United States. And then you have countries that are stable because they're closed like Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Or like Gaddafi's Libya, or like Kim Jong-un's North Korea. And of course, Raúl Castro's Cuba. And if you are a country that is stable because you're closed, you generally want to stay closed. And the reason for that is because if suddenly you get lots of capital and movement of people and ideas and trade between your closed country and open countries around the world, the people inside your country want more liberty. It is harder to maintain political control in that environment.
We see that going on in Belarus with President Lukashenko. We've seen it going on in Cuba. It's why when the United States tries to move towards openness with Cuba, the Cuban government itself, they want the money, but they resist the idea of lots of foreign direct investment coming into Cuba because the United States is so much bigger. This is the advantage that the Americans have. It's not like the United States versus China, where you bring the Chinese into the WTO, but they're so large they still have the ability to maintain significant controls over what their people see and do and experience. And increasingly with technological controls surveilling the entire population, they can consolidate communist control even though there is a level of state capitalism and private engagement in China.
In the case of Cuba, opening up the borders would mean a massive amount of trade overwhelming what the Cuban government could have influence over a massive amount of tourism and the engagement with the average Cuban citizen would be much greater. I would argue that the reason why the communist regime has persisted for 62 years has precisely because they've been allowed to maintain isolation supported by the United States because of that sanctions regime. Lots of reasons for it, lots of Cuban emigres that were so angry at the Castro regime that would not tolerate any level of opening up of those sanctions, but those people are largely gone now.
There's a lot of private sector folks in the United States that would love to have access purely not because they're interested in liberty, but just because they want to make money in Cuba. I would argue that if you were able to take advantage of the size and scale of the American economy, its investment capacity, its trade capacity, its demand for things like Cuban medical expertise and the doctors and nurses that could serve the American market, I mean even the old Cuban vintage cars that would all be repaired and suddenly sold in the American market. The impact that would have for the Cuban political system would be immense. And I would suspect that you'd have a much quicker move towards regime change from the grassroots of the Cuban people, as opposed to the failed efforts by the CIA and others historically that never seemed to go all that well for the United States.
Anyway, something to think about. Certainly, a debate we're going to have in a more direct way in the United States because thousands of Cuban citizens are taking their lives in their hands by demonstrating across the country this weekend. Hope everyone's doing well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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