President Obama’s plan to “normalize relations” with Cuba has put the Washington Post and the New York Times at editorial odds, the former scorching the White House for providing the flailing socialist republic with a “bailout” and the latter praising the administration for moving to end a “misguided” chapter in American foreign policy.
The president “granted the [Castro] regime everything on its wish list that was within his power to grant,” the Post’s editorial board wrote Wednesday in an article, titled “Obama gives the Castro regime in Cuba an undeserved bailout.”
The White House announced this week that it will establish “full diplomatic relations” with Cuba, including plans to open a U.S. embassy in Havana. The White House will also review Cuba’s “place on the list of terrorism sponsors” and ease laws regarding travel restrictions and monetary transfers.
The Obama administration also agreed to release three Cubans held on terrorism charges in return for an unidentified U.S. intelligence agent and 65-year-old Alan Gross, a U.S. Agency for International Development contractor (the president claimed Gross was not part of the “spy swap”). Cuba has agreed to release 53 political prisoners.
The Post scoffed at the White House’s claim that “normalized relations” with Cuba would “transform relations” with all of Latin America, characterizing the hope as “naïve.”
“That is contrary to U.S. experience with communist regimes such as Vietnam, where normalization has led to no improvements on human rights in two decades,” the board added, noting also that Obama has a “record of lukewarm and inconstant support for democratic change across the globe.”
“The Vietnam outcome is what the Castros are counting on: a flood of U.S. tourists and business investment that will allow the regime to maintain its totalitarian system indefinitely,” the Post board said. “Mr. Obama may claim that he has dismantled a 50-year-old failed policy; what he has really done is give a 50-year-old failed regime a new lease on life.”
The Times published a much cheerier view of the White House’s plans for Cuba, calling it “bold move that ends one of the most misguided chapters in American foreign policy” in an editorial, “Mr. Obama’s Historic Move on Cuba.”
“Mr. Obama could have taken modest, gradual steps toward a thaw. Instead, he has courageously gone as far as he can,” the editorial board said.
The president cannot on his own lift the U.S.’ longstanding trade embargo on Cuba, as doing so will require approval and funding from Congress.
The New York Times also praised Raúl Castro for being “pragmatic,” criticized U.S. policy as being “pointlessly harsh,” and suggested the Cuba shift could become Obama’s “top foreign policy legacy.”
“In all likelihood, history will prove Mr. Obama right,” the Times said.
In reaction to the policy announcement Wednesday, the three U.S. senators claiming Cuban heritage, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., spoke out against the White House’s plan, each saying separately that the policy shift is bad for the U.S. and bad for Cubans.
