“It is no longer Miami, but Washington, that is leading the blockade against Cuba”
By Jim Cason and David Brooks / La Jornada
The election of Donald Trump and the appointment of Cuban-American Marco Rubio as Secretary of State will result in a tightening of the blockade and measures against the Cuban government. However, a pollster and analyst who specializes in the Cuban-American community indicates that contrary to previous assumptions, it is no longer Miami that controls policy toward the island.
In fact, sociologist Guillermo Grenier of Florida International University (FIU) says that Cuban-American political power is declining, and support for the blockade is weaker than it was a decade ago. Grenier has conducted surveys among the Cuban-American community for more than thirty years.
In an interview with La Jornada in his university office, he reports that when Barack Obama came to the White House in 2009, 56 percent of Cuban-Americans supported maintaining the blockade. However, after Obama opened the relationship and restored diplomatic ties with the island, an overwhelming majority of that same community backed the change. This indicates that the shift in Cuba policy relies on Washington, not Miami.
Support for the embargo plummeted, Grenier says, citing a graph indicating that by 2016, only 34 percent of Cuban-Americans in Florida supported continuing the blockade, while 72 percent favored diplomatic relations with Cuba. There was resistance to a change in policy in Washington because it was believed Cuban-Americans would not support such a move. However, if you change the policy first, you find that Cuban-Americans tend to follow because, at the end of the day, they care less about your policies. Regardless of the blockade, they do care about overthrowing the Cuban government.
During Trump’s first term, when he reversed Obama’s opening, Cuban-Americans again shifted, and support for the blockade began to grow, following Washington once more. The Biden administration’s decision to largely continue Trump’s anti-Cuba policy, including designating the island a sponsor of terrorism until the last week of his term, had little effect on attitudes in Miami. In Washington, the Biden administration privately used the justification of Miami and the Cuban-American vote in its unsuccessful electoral strategy to avoid resuming Obama’s policy, which Grenier and local Cuban-American activists viewed as a significant error by the Democrats.
Decisive vote, in the past
Grenier explains that in the past, the Cuban-American vote was crucial when both parties politically contested Florida. Republican President George W. Bush won the state twice by narrow margins, just as Democrat Obama also won Florida two times. In that context, Grenier states, “at that time, the Cuban vote was circumstantial… it was a large electoral bloc.” However, he notes that in recent years, Republicans, facing little challenge from Democrats, have consolidated their political hold on the state. Consequently, the once critical Cuban-American bloc for that party is no longer as influential.
He reiterates that Cuban-American opinion has always been overestimated in defining Washington’s foreign policy towards Cuba. I believe this perception exists partly because it benefits Cuban-Americans, and they actively promote it.
Álvaro Fernández, a Cuban-American who advocates for increased electoral participation in Miami and South Florida, believes that Democrats, due to either ineptitude, cowardice, or both, chose not to invest in fostering the change in attitudes that led to the diplomatic opening with Cuba during the Obama administration. He is also a journalist with Progreso Semanal and a Miami historian, and he told La Jornada that the result of that decision by the Democrats is that this region is more Republican and Trumpist than ever.
He noted that the Republican Party, since Ronald Reagan, has aimed to include Cuban-Americans, and as a result, they have increasingly aligned with this party, despite their support for Democratic labor policies and, under Obama, even for the Democrats’ relationship with Cuba. He added that this Democratic misstep has led to a gloomier outlook for progressive movements in Florida.
With Trump back in the White House, the installation of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and the appointment of Mauricio Claver-Carone as special envoy for Latin America bolster the position of the old Cuban-American political guard that built and profited from the blockade and funding for alleged regime change programs. Rubio swiftly announced a tough policy against Havana, and measures are already being proposed to restrict remittances, revive lawsuits against foreign companies that dare to invest in the Caribbean nation, and, of course, reinstate the island on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
However, predicting Trump’s political moves is never easy. Analyst Lee Schlenker, in the publication Responsible Statecraft, states that Trump confidants, including Elon Musk and Sergio Gor, director of the Presidential Personnel Office, have previously visited the island where Trump has registered his brands. His executives have long considered properties on the beaches. In an interview, Schlenker adds that Senator John Thune, the leader of the Republican majority, was one of the advocates for lifting the travel ban on Cuba 25 years ago.
“Ya no es Miami, sino Washington, el que dirige el bloqueo a Cuba”
Although no one in Florida or Washington expects surprises or changes in the hardening of policy toward the island, Grenier points out that his polls indicate that if Trump suddenly decided to relax the sanctions, there would be no political cost in Miami for such an action (just as if Biden had dared). If Trump decided to lift the blockade tomorrow, he could do so, and Cubans would continue to vote for Republicans. He asserts that the policy toward Cuba is not the most important issue for all Cuban Americans.
In fact, policy toward Havana is not the most important issue for Cuban Americans. According to his surveys, the economy is clearly the primary political concern among respondents of all ages, except for the oldest, for whom access to health services is the top priority. Grenier concludes this in his 2024 survey conducted with his colleague Quin La at FIU.
Moreover, Grenier points out that, according to his surveys, Cuban immigrants who have arrived in recent years are not motivated by political, much less ideological, concerns. They have departed Cuba for different reasons than previous waves. If you ask them directly whether they would have left if they had been in a better economic situation, the answer is no. They respond that if things had been better economically, they would not have made their children suffer through this journey.
In other words, you can no longer pretend that this is merely for political reasons; it is, in fact, partly the result of the blockade policy.
