The White House condemned Cuba’s communist government as a crackdown on protesters continued into the week.
“Communism is a failed ideology, and we certainly believe that it has failed the people of Cuba,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday. “They deserve freedom.”
Outside of the White House, protesters chanted, “Free Cuba” for the fourth successive day as pressure inside mounted for a full-throated denouncement of the Cuban authorities.
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President Joe Biden is facing scrutiny for his approach so far, with Democrats divided on their response. While some have urged the president to roll back sanctions on the country, a campaign promise, others back a hard-line tack.
The regime has heaped blame on the sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump, but this approach has the support of a crucial Cuban American voting bloc in the swing state Florida.
Still underway is the administration’s policy review toward Cuba, for which Psaki declined to give a timeline for completion.
Some have urged the Biden administration to exempt from sanctions remittances from family members in the United States sent to people in Cuba. “On the flip side of that [is] our desire to prevent remittances, or any funding going into the hands or the pockets of leaders in Cuba,” Psaki said.
Asked about an announcement that Biden officials had invited United Nations experts, including from Cuba and China, to probe “the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia” in the U.S., Psaki said the effort is intended to lead by example for other countries.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who issued the statement, “believes responsible nations must not shrink from scrutiny of their human rights record,” she added.
A top Biden official drew criticism Sunday after she said the protests were prompted by Cubans exercising “their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID case/deaths & medicine shortage.” The tweet, authored by acting assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Julie Chung, echoed the position of the Cuban state.
Psaki on Monday framed the protests as part of a broader movement, calling them the “spontaneous expressions of people who are exhausted with the Cuban government’s economic mismanagement and repression.”
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In a statement, Biden said he backed protesters’ “clarion call for freedom” after thousands took to the streets last weekend.
“The Cuban people are demanding their freedom from an authoritarian regime,” Biden said in remarks to reporters. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this protest in a long, long time, if, quite frankly, ever.”
