During his campaign for the presidency last year, Joe Biden pledged to reverse what he called “the failed Trump policies” toward Cuba. But now, Biden’s White House is signaling that it is in no hurry to lift the severe sanctions and other measures imposed on Cuba by former President Donald Trump, much less return to the historic detente with Cuba that was pioneered by Biden’s old boss, former President Barack Obama. 

As the Biden administration bides its time, Cuba’s aging leaders have passed the baton to a new generation. At the Communist Party’s eighth congress last month, Raul Castro stepped down as party chief, marking a transition of power to a new generation of leaders born after the 1959 revolution.  But that new generation was careful to telegraph that it does not plan to change Cuba’s political system or alter the government’s heavy-handed approach to dissent. 

This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Michael Bustamante, an assistant professor of Latin American History at Florida International University, to discuss the outlook for U.S.-Cuba ties and what the Biden administration’s cautious approach might means for the island. Bustamante’s latest book, just published in March, is “Cuban Memory Wars: Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile.”

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Relevant Articles on WPR:

• A Simple Reset Won’t Make U.S.-Cuba Ties More Sustainable
• Cuba’s Post-Castro Leaders Must Deliver the Goods
• Cuba’s Economic Crisis Is Spurring Much-Needed Action on Reforms
• How Biden Would Change U.S. Policy in Latin America

Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.

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