The end of the United States blockade against Cuba, demanded for the twenty-ninth consecutive year in the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization and overwhelmingly approved by 184 votes in favor, 2 against (USA, Israel and Brazil ) and 3 abstentions, reaffirms the freedom of trade and navigation in the face of an anachronistic blockade established by Kennedy in 1962 and that have meant direct and indirect losses for the Island estimated at $ 110,000 million, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and close to a Billion $, according to the Cuban Government. In addition, the automatic renewal by the US for one more year of the trade embargo on the island would threaten the current international financial and political system and could entail losses for Cuba estimated at about $ 7,000 million, leading the Cuban regime to economic asphyxia that could turn lethal after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuba, Trump's obsession

Donald Trump made it the leitmotif of his presidency to eliminate all vestige of the Obama legacy. Thus, after the attempt to end Obamacare, the announcement of the revision of the NAFTA Treaty and the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement against Climate Change, the next step was to undo the diplomatic and commercial advances achieved with Cuba under the mandate. of Barack Obama. Thus, the changes proposed by the Trump administration were intended to increase regulations and supervision to make it difficult for US companies to sign agreements with Cuba as well as for Americans to continue traveling to the country, as the result of persistent pressure from prominent Cuban-American representatives Marco Rubio and Mario Díaz-Balart, both Republicans. According to a study by Engage Cuba, the new policy "would cost the US economy $ 6.6 billion and affect 12,295 jobs during Trump's first term."

For his part, Mike Pence announced the implementation of new measures against two companies that transport Venezuelan crude to Cuba as well as against the 34 vessels that PDVSA uses for this purpose with the avowed objective of causing the "energy asphyxia of Cuba" by means of the amputation of the umbilical cord connecting Venezuela and Cuba following the Kentian theory of the "carrot and stick" exposed by Sherman Kent in his book "Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy" (1949). In this book, Kent states that “war is not always conventional: indeed, a large part of war, remote and close, has always been carried out with unconventional weapons: [...] weapons [. ..] political and economic. The kind of war in which they are used [...] (are) political warfare and economic warfare.”

Following the repressive escalation, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Cuban state company Cubametales for "its continued importation of Venezuelan crude and support for the Government of the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro." As a consequence of this measure, the assets that the company may have under US jurisdiction are frozen and financial transactions with US entities are prohibited since Cubametales, according to the US Government, was "responsible for guaranteeing total imports and exports of fuels, from and to Cuba”. The avowed objective was for the Island to be doomed to a suffocation of unpredictable results after the collapse of tourism caused by the irruption on the Island of the coronavirus pandemic and in the paroxysm of lack of solidarity, the Trump Administration blocked purchases and deliveries of masks, lung ventilators and other basic health supplies for the treatment of patients with Covid-19, since the ultimate objective of the Trump Administration was to achieve a total shortage of oil, food and vital health supplies to shake the current status quo of the Island and as a farewell fireworks display, Trump once again included Cuba in the list of “States Sponsoring Terrorism” thus completing the record number of 240 sanctions against the island.

The geopolitical myopia of the Biden Administration

Utopia is considered the way to achieve a dream that could potentially have the ability to become a concrete act, for which it is necessary to follow the path marked by il poverello d´Assisi: “It begins by doing what is necessary, then what is possible and suddenly you will be doing the impossible”. Thus, utopia would be the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States, the final destination of a journey marked by what is necessary (termination of the energy Blockade) and what is possible (suspension of the anachronistic Blockade) until reaching what seemed impossible (normalization of the relations between Cuba and the US).

Joe Biden in an interview with CBS said that "in the event of winning the elections, he would resume the policy carried out by Barack Obama towards Cuba," which could translate into a significant change in US-Cuban relations in the near future. In this context, the request of the think tank Cuba Study Group (CSG) to the Biden Administration for "a renewed diplomatic commitment with Cuba" is framed. This analysis group chaired by businessman Carlos Saldrigas represents the moderate tendency of the Cuban-American community being composed of prominent businessmen and political activists who actively participated in improving relations with Cuba during the Obama Presidency.

In his petition to the Biden Administration, he emphasizes that "a policy of rapprochement towards Cuba is vital to promote the national interests of the United States and a freer and more prosperous future for the Cuban people" while attaching an exhaustive agenda of the steps necessary to get it, which could be in short, a first draft to translate utopia into reality. Thus, the road ahead will be marked by the challenges of the settlement of the energy blockade on the Island, the withdrawal of Cuba from the list of "States Sponsoring Terrorism", the repeal of the Helms-Burton Law and finally, the suspension of the anachronistic Blockade in force since 1962. that would give way to the exchange of ambassadors and the desired normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States. However, in an interview with CNN, Joe Biden's adviser for Latin America, Colombian Juan González, ruled out a new thaw with Cuba and assured that "Joe Biden is not Barack Obama in the policy towards the island" at the same time He added that "the political moment has changed significantly", which demonstrates the geopolitical myopia of the Biden Administration that could generate a vacuum in the Caribbean of unpredictable results in the middle of Cold War 2.0 between the US and Russia.

- Germán Gorraiz López - Political analyst.