Two expected developments at this weekend’s Summit of the Americas are already roiling critics of President Obama’s Cuban policies two days before the gathering begins.
First, the Obama administration is expected to remove Cuba from the state sponsors of terrorism list, either before the talks or during them.
In addition, Obama will have some type of direct encounter with Cuban President Raul Castro beyond the handshake they shared in 2013 at a memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela.
“I’m sure President Obama will be interacting with President Castro at the summit events,” Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters Tuesday.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest would not rule out a meeting between the two leaders or a decision to remove Cuba from the state sponsors of terrorism list before or during the gathering in Panama City.
“I just don’t have any of those details to announce at this point, but stay tuned and we’ll let you know,” Earnest told reporters.
That didn’t stop some of the administration’s harshest critics on its decision to normalize relations with Cuba from trying to slam the expected Obama decision on the terrorism list.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., a Cuban-American and top Obama critic on the issue, called the expected decision to remove Cuba from the list “nothing short of a miscarriage of justice born out of political motivations not rooted in reality.”
“U.S. law is clear that a country cannot be removed from the SST list if it has not changed its policies and so long as the country is still supporting acts of international terrorism,” she said.
Obama, she argued, is ignoring the Castro brothers’ continued policies in support of terrorism by providing safe haven to foreign terrorist organizations and in doing so has repeatedly violated international sanctions.
Only four weeks ago, Ros-Lehtinen pointed out, a Chinese ship on its way to Cuba was found carrying a huge shipment of gunpowder, detonators, artillery shells and other explosives, which was mislabeled as grain products. In 2013, she recalled, Cuba was caught illegally shipping fighter jets and weapons disguised under tons of sugar on a North Korean ship, in violation of United Nations sanctions.
“The Obama administration chose to look the other way in both cases,” she said. “We should not reward the criminal behavior of a repressive regime that insists on continuing to abuse human rights.”
In stark contrast, administration officials are viewing the summit as the perfect venue to showcase its rapprochement with Cuba after 50 years of U.S. isolation of the island nation.
“This is the first Summit of the Americas that Cuba is attending and that in its own right is an important development,” Rhodes said Tuesday. “We did not think it was constructive to try to isolate Cuba [from the summit] — it only pointed to the failure of U.S. policy.”
Experts on U.S.-Latin American relations are keeping a close watch on the summit this weekend because of this year’s extra intrigue and suspense.
“Pretty much anything can happen,” said the Atlantic Council’s Peter Schlecter.
Schlecter points out that Presidents Obama and Castro could end up producing a joint statement or Venezuelan Presidents Nicolas Maduro and Castro could have a meeting of solidarity or produce a shared agreement of its own.
“If you read U.S. papers, you would think that Cuba is the only topic to discuss here,” Schlecter said. “But you have a number of countries in the hemisphere in very precarious economic situations, including Venezuela, Chile and Mexico — all of these governments have been subjected to mass protests and public frustration against corruption.”
Venezuela, he said, “is melting before our very eyes, and it’s an issue of enormous seriousness.”
Caracas’s oil shipments to Caribbean countries are diminishing daily, he said, and there is growing instability in the country and a dearth of goods — from milk to diapers.
“The potential for a blow-up in Venezuela is the largest issue to talk about,” he added.
Manuel Suarez-Mier, an economist in residence at American University’s School of International Service, argues that Venezuela is imploding because its leaders wasted a lot of resources on foolish projects such as propping up Cuba’s economy.
Without Venezuela’s strong support, the Cuban economy is fragile, and the Castro regime is hoping that the U.S. will end up lifting the trade embargo to help bolster its flagging economy, Suarez-Mier said. But removing the embargo would take an act of Congress and is unlikely to happen anytime soon with Republicans in control of both chambers.
Over the long run, Suarez-Mier says, the U.S. is wise to re-engage with Cuba because eventually the Castro regime will give way to new leadership, leading to a pivotal time for the island.
“You don’t want it falling into chaos,” he said. “Because under that scenario, the bad guys in the neighborhood could take advantage of the instability like they are doing in Venezuela.”
Suarez-Mier also tried to shoot down another U.S. fear about the region — that China is exercising too big of role after lending Latin American and Caribbean countries nearly $120 billion over the past decade.
China’s investment in Latin America has been partial and concentrated in nations only where it can use raw material.
Over the long haul, however, he said China’s lowering of its rate of population growth to 7 percent will translate into less demand for overseas goods.
“So I wouldn’t worry too much about China,” he said. “By the year 2030, you will have more old people than kids in China and at that time India will be the most populous country in the world.
“China has had its day,” he said.
